


Bits and Pieces: A Drabble Collection

by Salamon2



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - ISOT, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:23:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 42,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2786486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamon2/pseuds/Salamon2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots, drabbles, and prompt-fills that I write up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tyrion ISOT'd into Tytos - 244 AC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion, from the very beginning of AGOT, has his mind sent back in time to the body of his grandfather, Tytos Lannister, in 244 AC. A prompt fill from AH.com.
> 
> The Prompt:
> 
> What if an Alien Space Bat ISOTs Tyrion from the start of A Game of Thrones (on the Kingsroad on his way to Winterfell) into the body of his grandfather Tytos (24), as he assumed the Lordship of Casterly Rock ca. 244 AC? Aside from the awkwardness of bedding his own grandmother, will Tyrion be able to effectively deal with the Reynes and other lords and change House Lannister's fortunes for the better this time 'round?

  
**TYRION**  
  
It had been a great night of drinking and the whore had been pleasant. She had known how to perform the Mereenese Knot very well. Gods he'd been out of his mind with pleasure at that one. What she had done with her tongue and her legs! He would be sure to stop at this brothel on the trip south--he'd look forward to it with pleasure.  
  
He felt someone shaking his shoulder and lazily Tyrion reached out to swat them again--not expecting to be able to do so with his short arms--but he was surprised when he did.  
  
He heard someone say, "My lord, you must come quick."  
  
"Buggeroff..." mumbled Tyrion.  
  
His voice sounded strange... somewhat deeper? Likely the hangover--gods was it a horrible one. His whole body felt numb and achy, likely from riding his mare that Jaime had given him all day and the sweet golden-haired whore all night.  
  
"Tytos, get up!" insisted another voice, this one female, likely the whore he'd enjoyed the night before.  
  
"My name isn't Tytos!" growled Tyrion.  
  
 _Gods, this wench's memory is terrible._..  
  
"He's still in his buckets, my lady."  
  
 _Since when is a whore a lady?_  
  
"I'll toss one on his head myself if I have to to get him up," threatened the woman.  
  
"I'm getting up... I'm getting up!" assured Tyrion as he rooched around one final time between the soft mattress and sheets. They almost reminded him of Casterly Rock.  
  
"Hurry! Your father is dying--he's requested to speak with you, now get your sodden ass out of bed!" commanded the woman.  
  
Tyrion's eyes snapped open at that. Everything was far too bright--someone had open the scarlet curtains and let all the early morning sun light in. He squinted and blinked a few times, raising his arm to shade his eyes. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the light and he began to distinguish shapes and colors better. The room was very well furnished for a whore's--in fact it looked nothing like the room he'd fallen asleep in.  
  
 _I'm back at the Rock..._ _was King's Landing all a dream?_  
  
He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and was stunned to find his feet reach the carpeted floor without having to slide out of the bed. He looked down at himself expecting to see his short stunted lets and feet, instead surprised to find long--even somewhat lanky--legs going to large and somewhat veiny feet. He wiggled his toes, and the large digits he was gawking at moved.  
  
 _My body..._  
  
"Yes, you have feet, now get dressed!" urged the woman, and Tyrion looked up to see a strikingly beautiful woman with golden hair, fierce brown eyes, large breasts obviously filled with milk and a swollen belly. She was dressed in a fine scarlet and gold dress cut in a fashion Tyrion had never seen a woman that young wear.  
  
 _Definitely not the whore I went to bed with..._  
  
Aggravated by his poking, the woman bustled herself to his chest of drawers herself--shouting at the servants which hovered at the edges of the room and scaring them as she muttered about having to do things herself--and began to pull out clothes and tossing them at him. He caught them with long well-muscled arms and large hands that he was half tempted to marvel at, but one look at the lady's hard brown eyes, prompted Tyrion to dress himself, though before he could stand he found himself surrounded by a bunch of servants ready to cover his nakedness with small clothes, shirt, trousers, and doublet. He had begun to fumble about with the small buttons on the doublet when one of his man servants took over. Soon he was presentable in a fine scarlet silk and cloth of gold doublet and trousers with red leather boots. The woman gave him a quick look over, and then giving a hard pressed smile, she wrapped her arm in his and hurried them out of the room. Tyrion was glad for the support--for the first time he didn't feel the need to waddle as he walked. It was strange talking long strides like these, completely and utterly strange.  
  
 _Gods--if any of you are listening--I don't care if I have to endure the shrew, but may this dream never end!_  
  
"Shouldn't you be in confinement?" he asked the lady.  
  
"How much wine did you drink last night? Lady Tarbeck arrived yesterday and I won't have her acting as Lady of the Rock!" growled the lady.  
  
His head was still hurting as they walked as briskly as her extended stomach would allow her to waddle.  
  
 _Tarbeck?! Aren't they all dead?_ _Definitely a dream._  
  
"Of course..." he assured the shrew. Soon they came to what Tyrion recognized were his father's private chambers, which had a guard posted, who nodded at the sight of them and opened the door.  
  
Inside Tyrion was treated to see--for the first time in his life--the inside of his father's bed chambers, or what he likely imagined them to be. A large and spacious room, with a giant four poster bed as the centerpiece, around which furniture decorated with lions was arranged. An opened door looked out onto a private patio which looked west over the Sunset Sea. The smell of a warm sea breeze wafted into the room as did the call of seagulls and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore.  
  
In the bed lay an old man, bald, wrinkled, and weak looking with watery green eyes. By his bedside was a fat old hunchback who looked more like a toad than a man, dressed in the motley garments of a fool.  
  
"Tytos, come here..." wheezed the old man, and Tyrion--realizing that he was the Tytos being referred to, Tyrion stepped forward rather awkwardly on his own, eventually finding it more of an ease to be kneeling by the old man's bed than standing over it awkwardly.  
  
 _My grandfather was named Tytos... was this how it truly was for my grandfather? Then that would make this man... my great-grandfather... the Grey Lion!_  
  
The old man took his hand in his own bony frail ones and held it weakly.  
  
"I'm sorry that I wasn't a better father to you, Tytos..."  
  
An apology that Tyrion would likely never get from his own father.  
  
"You were the best you could be," assured Tyrion with a smile.  
  
"You smile too easily, Tytos. You'll be the Lord of Casterly Rock in a few hours time if the gods are merciful--don't make the mistake I made of being too weak and letting the Reynes always have their way. They might be our strongest bannermen, but they are our bannermen, Tytos, and not the reverse."  
  
"Please listen to him milord, the halls of the Rock are wet enough without it raining in them all the time," quipped the toad-looking hunchback.  
  
Tyrion did his best to hold his tongue to keep from laughing.  
  
"Quiet you fool, or I'll... bludgeon in your fat head myself" coughed the old man.  
  
"With what weapon milord? One of your books? I fear Lady Jeyne's fists here more than I do your books!" prodded the hunchback.  
  
"My goodfather told you to be quiet, fool, so be quiet!" snapped the shrew.  
  
"Aye, milady," answered the fool.  
  
"You see what little respect I have, even from my fool. Promise me, son, that you will bring respect back to the Lannister name. I want my grandson Tywin to grow up to be proud of his name--not ashamed of it."  
  
"I promise..." stated Tyrion.  
  
"Good... now go. I wish to be left alone..." ordered the Grey Lion, as he scooted on his bed and let go of Tyrion's hands. Tyrion stood, unaccustomed to the extra height, but soon gaining his bearings.  
  
No, Tyrion thought as he took what he took to be his grandmother's arm and left the room--this time would be different. The Reynes and Tarbecks wouldn't know what hit them. Starting with that upstart Lady Ellyn.


	2. Tyrion ISOT'd into Tytos Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Ellyn Tarbeck misjudges just who has control of the situation.

**ELLYN**  
  
There was something quite different about the Laughing Lion--or as she liked to think to him, the Limp Lion for that one time he'd had in her bed. His brother had never had to work very hard to become stiff, while Tytos had needed more than a bit of fondling to get going. And then he'd gone and sniffled to that wife of his--the shrew--proving just how little of a man he was, not like Tion or Tywald, or even Roger. No, he was just a limp little lion, that she had been sure about. And then he had walked into the Great Hall where over half the Westerlands had assembled in anticipation of Lord Gerold's death, and everything had changed.  
  
"My Lords and Ladies, it is with great sadness that I speak with you to say that my father has left this world with the Stranger's entourage."  
  
"We are all saddened by such news, my Lord. Lord Gerold was one of the finest Lords of the Rock," offered the simpering fool Lord Westerling.  
  
Tytos began with one of his customary laughs, but did not finish with it as he said, "Indeed, in his youth he had certainly been a great Lord of the Rock. But with the passing of his brother, niece, both his wives, and my elder brothers, he became burdened with regret and loneliness. Try as I did to make him laugh, he preferred his books to my japes. For he was right about one thing--now is not the time for japing. My father improved the wealth of my house tremendously--and lent some to each of you. What is wealth--he said--if it is not shared well? He especially took this thought to heart in his dotage, when he was eager to see merry faces about him to relieve himself of his grief. 'Tis a fine philosophy, but I do believe that some of you my lords have been a bit late in repaying those small little loans. I can understand your reasons, the crops weren't as bountiful as last year or the smallfolk are evading your tax collectors--it matters not. These are problems, but ones which should not keep you from meeting your payments more than once. Those having trouble paying their debts will remember that a Lannister always pays theirs, and as such does not appreciate those who are tardy in their own. Those who remain tardy in repayment will find other means to repay those debts or consequences shall be taken to ensure their repayment. Is that clear?"  
  
Lords had nodded their heads or shouted aye in utter shock. Ellyn herself found that she was unable to take her eyes off of this new Lord Tytos.  
  
It had almost seemed as if Tytos had become possessed by something--he cast an unusually ill look at all the Lords in the room--it was... stern... as hard as steal. It actually moistened her groin--though that had tended to be rather slick since she had given birth to Cerella just a few moons ago. Even his lady wife, looked at him differently, Ellyn noticed. But then he was back to smiling and laughing again about something else relatively quickly. Tension eased out of the room of collected lords and ladies slowly, but it did fade.  
  
That was a fluke, Ellyn convinced herself. One rare moment when the Limp Lion got hard--even a stopped clock was right twice a day. More importantly Ellyn knew Tytos, and she had eyes and ears all over the Rock to ensure she continued knowing him and his movements. The servants might serve him, but they were all loyal to her, considering she had hired them when she had been Lady of the Rock. Even still they reported to her. She would have her revenge on the Limp Lion, and weather Casterly Rock with her rains.  
  
Things continued as she expected for a few years, with the Limp Lion holding what was being called "the Merrie Court", while she slowly rebuilt the decaying ruin of Tarbeck Hall with most of the gold she had originally borrowed from House Lannister.  But oddly enough several of the servants she hired began to stop reporting to her, and when she had others make inquiries into the disappearances they too stopped writing to her. This concerned Ellyn, but the lack of servants being cast out of Casterly Rock or coming to her begging for new employ, simply meant that some of her eyes and ears had forgotten who had hired them.  
  
The oddest thing came when a request for further funds to repair the curtain wall on Tarbeck Hall was denied by the Rock. Infuriated she had gathered herself and brought her young son Tion with her to speak to the Limp Lion.  
  
The Limp Lion had taken her sudden arrival with apparent mirth, welcoming her and her young son quite bountifully in front of his entire court. The strangest thing was how full of children the court was--Ellyn spied a young Swyft girl, barely older than a babe, running about on fat stubby legs along with a small Payne boy with colorless eyes acting as a cup bearer, were two of the most prominent to Ellyn's eyes.  
  
 _So the Limp Lion has turned the Rock into a nursery it seems..._  
  
Tion was encouraged to join young Tywin and Kevan in play, which her son did quite eagerly. In private however the Limp Lion seemed to have thought the situation was quite different from what the truth actually was.  
  
"I was quite surprised at being denied another loan, especially considering our family connections," she began as he poured wine and offered her some, which she took quite graciously.  
  
"You have yet to begin repayments on your previous loans, Lady Tarbeck, of course you would be denied further loans. Did you fail to hear me upon my father's death?" asked Tytos with a seemingly at ease smile.  
  
"And yet I have a curtain wall only half finished and in need of repair... what am I to do?" asked Ellyn as she leaned in to him and placed her hand on his inner thigh. Her eyes and ears might have disappeared, but one thing the few she had left spoke of was that his weakness for women continued unabated--though they noted he had become much more discrete about the practice. She slowly began to stroke his muscled thigh, working her way up to his crotch delicately.  
  
What would have had the young Tytos begging for more and promising her anything, seemed to have no effect on this Tytos. He merely seemed only mildly pleased, smirking for a moment as she fondled his limp member--till it grew as straight as a sword, all the while staring her in the eyes and seeming to wait for her to stop. Out of confusion for why he wasn't at least trying to kiss her, she did so.  
  
He then said as he crossed the room to his desk, taking out a piece of paper, "Good, you got that out of your system. Now, about those repayments on the eight thousand gold dragons you owe, Lady Tarbeck."  
  
"Eight thousand?!" she asked almost as if in a daze, completely shocked that he had resisted her. She had only borrowed five thousand.  
  
Tytos seemed like a cat who had found cream as he held forth a piece of parchment with a blue seven point star in wax at the bottom for her to see. He said, "Aye, as according to the contract your husband signed, if you fail to begin repayment of your loan in a timely manner, a penalty is added to what you owe, and further loans will be denied."  
  
She stared at the parchment, able to catch bits and pieces of what it said, horrified to find that it had indeed stated as such.  
  
He continued, "Now, I have it on good authority that your lands have been doing considerably better of late--no doubt from wise investment of Lannister Gold in the land. Seems a pity that you've been unable to use some of those funds to repay your loans."  
  
"Aye, things have been better, but the state of House Tarbeck's funds have fallen so low, that any little recovery is hardly up to where it should be," she replied, trying to think of some way out of this situation.  
  
"True, now I might be willing to extend some forgiveness on the tardiness of your loan if..."  
  
"If?" she asked.  
  
"If we were to renew our ties of family, Ellyn. We were once as brother and sister, after all... and I have need for a page, and my heir need of a betrothed."  
  
"No!" she replied, automatically--seeing straight through the fancy lies to the truth of the situation.  
  
"You misunderstand me, Lady Tarbeck, I was not suggesting you had any choice in the matter. Unless you begin repayments immediately, I will have your children fostered here at the Rock as my page and my son's betrothed. They shall be given the finest education, have the benefits of children their own age to--" he began.  
  
She interrupted him there, as she felt a frown forming on her face, "You're more of a fool than I thought, Tytos."  
  
"Am I?" he asked with half a laugh--though it didn't reach his emerald eyes--that looked hard at her.  
  
She continued, "You even try and take my children away from me and you'll find half the kingdom up in arms against you."  
  
She was a red lioness, no matter if she wore a star now, and her children would remain with her.  
  
Tytos only smiled as he said, "Lady Tarbeck, when you leave this room to fetch your son, I'd suggest you take a long look at his playmates-- _all_ his playmates."  
  
She left Tytos' study in a near rage, vowing further vengeance for such a slight. She was pointed in the direction of where the children had gone off to, to a remote lagoon off of the indoor harbor under the Rock. There she found a whole swath of children of many different ages. She saw at least one child from each house--major and minor in the Westerlands, and amongst them all was Tion laughing and enjoying himself. He had few boys his own age to play with at Tarbeck Hall--seeing as his half-brothers were men grown--and he found his sister's company almost intolerable.  
  
Half soaked, her little red-haired boy came running up to her shouting rather excitedly "Mother! Tywin and Kevan say that I'm to stay and be a page for their father! When will that be, mother? When?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed in anger, "Never, we're going home Tion."  
  
"No! I wanna stay here!" grunted Tion determinedly, digging his heels into the dirt.  
  
"Tion, don't be ridiculous!" she barked at him, and dragging him out of the cave.  
  
In the end, the old fool she had married sent her darling Tion to Casterly Rock, along with Cerella. Even her brother--the fool--turned on her saying that she would do better to consign herself to the arrangement.  
  
"Children are fostered all the time, Ellyn, leave it be." But then his son had been promised Tytos' daughter's hand in marriage.  
  
"One day she will be Lady of the Rock," her husband had gruffly stated when she had argued the point with him.  
  
Ellyn knew better, Cerella would never be Lady of the Rock, it was only an excuse to take her daughter away from her, leaving her with her only child left to her--Myreena. Myreena who she now put all her thought and attention into as she tried for yet another son from her limp husband, one who wouldn't abandon her like Tion had.


	3. Tyrion ISOT'd into Tytos Part 3

**TYWIN**  
  
"Why should I be nice to Joanna?" he asked.  
  
"Because she's your cousin and you should include her in your games if she so desires it--she won't be at Casterly Rock for forever, Tywin. In a few moons she'll be off to court."  
  
"Good! I can't wait for her to be gone," pouted Tywin.  
  
"You don't mean that," countered his father.  
  
"Of course I do. I hate her! I hope she dies!" protested Tywin.  
  
At that, Tywin received a hard slap to his face.  
  
"Never say that you wish one of our family was dead. Ever! Do you hear me?" roared his normally jovial father, with a rage Tywin rarely saw, but he knew if he provoked into revealing itself he had gone too far. Tywin looked to his mother for support, but all she did was look at him as if he were despicable.  
  
"I'm surprised at you Tywin, wishing your cousin were dead! When you are through here you will go to the Sept and pray to the Stranger not to take her for your wagging tongue!" she scolded.  
  
"But--" he started.  
  
"You heard your mother, Tywin, go to the Sept, now," supported his father.  
  
"Yes ser..." whimpered Tywin bitterly. He wanted to cry from the sting the slap still gave his one cheek, but he wouldn't--not in front of his father, who he apparently had sorely disappointed, which in truth hurt worse than the slap. As he walked through the halls to the Sept he thought of how he could be better. He had to be better.   
  
Once in the Sept he found a candle and brought it to the nearly empty rack of the Stranger. Then taking a small stick from the rack he lit it from one of the candles lit in front of the Smith and then lit his own. He silently but dutifully prayed to the Stranger to not take Joanna, and ignore his wagging tongue.   
  
When he had finished his prayers he rose to leave the Sept and to go up to the practice yard when he heard someone crying. Curious he followed the sounds until he came to a more private nook of the Sept where he saw Cerella Tarbeck, his betrothed, whom he hardly was allowed to see or interact with. Mother and Father always kept her away from him--which seemed odd to Tywin considering one day he was to marry her--or so the Maester said. Cerella was a year his junior and had long auburn hair and rich reddish-brown eyes to match. Eyes which now were filled with tears.  
  
"Why are you crying?" he asked, curious enough.  
  
Startled by his voice, Cerella looked frightened as though having been caught. She looked up and saw him as she tried to hurriedly wipe her tears from her eyes.  
  
"I... I wasn't crying!" she insisted, though a few tears still fell from her cheeks.  
  
"Did someone say something bad to you?" he asked.  
  
"No..." she said.  
  
"Then why were you crying?" he repeated again.  
  
"I told you, I wasn't crying!" insisted Cerella stubbornly.  
  
"Then why are there tears on your cheeks?" he asked point blankly.  
  
As she tried to rub away the moist trails from her cheeks she said, "You just want to laugh at me... like all the others!"  
  
"No I don't," he replied automatically. Very little made him laugh, it was one thing he was well noted for.   
  
She sniffled before saying, "Maester Tycott gave me a letter... I have a new baby brother."  
  
"That's a good thing, isn't it?" he asked, confused why that would make anyone cry.  
  
"And my momma died giving birth to him!" finished the girl.  
  
Tywin didn't know what to say in response to that, but he did know that he should do something. Father always did something for Mother when she was sad--even if he looked like he didn't want to. If Father could do that, then he could certainly do just as much--if not more. He would be better after all, and one day this girl would be his wife--or so said Maester Tycott.  
  
So he sat down next to Cerella and did what he often saw his father do for his mother when she was sad--he put his arms around Cerella--though he found the experience rather awkward to say the least. His betrothed seemed to like this, for she reciprocated rather quickly, burying her face into his new red velvet doublet. He was about to say something about her ruining his doublet with her tears when she seemed to stop crying, and she clung tighter to him. At first he wasn't sure if he liked having her so close to him, but as a small smile crept across her face, something inside of him seemed to stir. It felt good to make her smile like that, he decided. Yes... it felt very good.  
  
"Who made you cry?" he then asked her, wondering if he should challenge whichever boy it had been or scold whichever girl. She was his betrothed after all--even if father normally wouldn't let him see her that often. He had to do something for her besides this.  
  
"Joanna..." she whispered to him.  
  
Before they left the Sept he blew out the candle he'd placed in front of the Stranger, without any remorse.


	4. Tyrion ISOT'd into Tytos Part 4

**JEYNE**

 

"Push Lady Lannister!"

 

"I am gods damn you! I am! Why is this taking so...  fucking... loooohhhh!"

 

This one would be a boy, she was sure of it, and he would look like Tytos--the little demon, that she also knew. It simply had to be so. After Genna had been born, Tytos had looked at her oddly before returning her to her arms. It was because she had brown eyes instead of his green--that's what it had been, but in every other way she was a Lannister. Then had come her Tyrek, whom Tytos had been flabbergasted to see naming him as if it were a question. Tyrek was her handsome boy, her favorite son, whom no one could help but stare and love--even Tytos watched his third son grow in amazement and awe. Then she had gotten pregnant unexpectedly and her lovely darling twins Tysha and Rohanne had been born--where their elder sister had taken after her, Tysha and Rohanne were all Lannister and were just as beautiful in comparison to their elder sister. Having survived three sons and three daughters, Jeyne had figured her need to bear more children had passed. She should have known that if she'd bore a child in honor of all the gods but one that the final one would come eventually for his due.

 

Upon seeing her at the beginning of her confinement the midwife had tutted, "You're much older than you were at Tysha's birth, my lady, and braving the bloody bed at your age can be quite dangerous."

 

The maester had assured her that giving birth at six and thirty was still young enough, but had worried since it would be seven years since Tysha's birth that he hoped her body hadn't become inflexible as he put it. He had warned her that there might be more pain this time.

 

He hadn't told her that she'd feel as though she'd already split in half and that her gut were falling out along with the babe.

 

"Godsdamn Tytos!" she cried.

 

He'd been at once quite excited for a new babe, crooning over her as though she were carrying his heir. When she'd carried Tywin, Tytos had simply taken to his whores and held little interest in her. He still had his whores, but thankfully the number had lessened to the point where she felt she could ignore them--and all of them seemed to be well supplied with moontea.

 

Gods the pain... it trembled through her body.

 

She was barely able to draw breath when the babe screamed. There was a throbbing beat and a pounding on her head. She couldn't feel her legs anymore, and though she heard the fire crackle, she felt so cold.

 

She might have heard, "My lady, 'tis a boy!"

 

"A boy? ... A boy... let me... see my son..." she panted.

 

The pounding grew louder and in the dim light from the fire she looked towards the large dark blur which came towards her. Her vision focused in and out until at long last she recognized a dark hooded figure standing over her with two eyes staring out from the darkness.

 

"The... Strang... er..."

 

She heard almost as if the midwife were from quite far away, "No my lady, 'tis a fine boy, with fine downy curls."

 

The dark hooded figure leaned closer to her, the eyes staring through her as everything but those eyes faded from sight.


	5. Ned's Family Reunion Part One

Stark Prompt:  
  
_"Lord Rickard and Brandon, appear in Winterfell a day before Robert arrives. They only reappear with the memories they had up to when they last left Winterfell. I.E.  281 20 year old Brandon reappears--from prior to leaving for Harrenhal; while you'd have a 282 Rickard who's setting out in his mind to answer Aerys' summons to King's Landing."_

 

I’ve changed the arrival date to the day after they receive news of Robert’s intentions of coming North, and the day after the Stark children receive their direwolf pups. I've also added Lyanna and Lyarra to the list of resurrected Starks (though only Rickard & Brandon feature in this fragment as is)--figuring why not grant Ned his most dearest wish? To have his whole family back with him once again. ;) Be careful what you wish Ned...

 

**********

 

**EDDARD**

 

A loud rapping at the door awoke him from his slumber. Tiredly, Ned shifted his bleary eyes to the window to see what hour it was, and groaned when he barely saw a hint of red in the early morning hours.

 

"Gods," he let escape from his mouth. And then the unbearable heat of Cat's room began to oppress him as it always did. He rolled the furs off of him.

 

“What is it?” groaned Cat from next to him.

 

"My lady, we cannot find Lord Eddard in his rooms,” replied the maid’s voice from the other side of the door.

 

“Lord Stark shall be with you anon,” called out Cat who the next instant snuggled in close to him, pressing her nakedness against his back, with only a fur between them. She then rested her chin against his shoulder and wrapped her arms about him, telling him that he was to stay put in her bed.

 

Feeling himself as hard and stiff in the morning as he usually was, Ned cursed the servants’ timing. “Cat, I can’t tarry long… no matter how much I’d like to.”

 

“A little patience never hurt anyone,” appealed Cat as she nuzzled her head against his. His sword was still unsheathed and now beginning to bother him—especially the way with how Cat was lightly moving her fingertips across his flat gut and then down further and closer to… Gods! there’d be no way he’d leave this room.

 

“You’re killing me Cat…” he moaned.

 

“Then come into my castle my lord,” she teased into his ear and he was turning around and soon underneath the furs again with Cat, kissing her as his rough paws of hands began to gently give her as much stimulation as he’d received from her. He began with gentle touches around her teats and then slowly, let his sword hand work its way south, beginning with the same light touches she’d given him—only on the inside of her thigh, slowly working in and moving closer. She began to writhe and he felt his need for her grow. As he stroked around her moat she pulled even closer to him, his sword just beneath her castle as she gripped his back tightly—her nails nearly digging into him.

 

“A good lord does not keep his lady waiting long my lord, she nearly growled in his ear like the she-wolf he’d made her with the exchange of cloaks, and so he entered her castle and they began their joining.

 

And just as they were both about to finish, once again the rapping at the door and the maid’s voice returned, “My lord and lady, I am sorry to disturb you, but you both are needed in the courtyard now!”

 

They were already too far gone to stop, but the mood was definitely soured. They came, but the pleasure in doing so was lessened by the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to finish with an embrace as they often did when finished.

 

Sighing, Ned rose and stumbled over to the window as was his custom, throwing it open to cool the room, looking down into the courtyard and freezing still at the sight he saw down below—a sight he’d thought never to see again in all his life. An older man was pacing about yelling at any and all servants that even dared to sneak by him without addressing him.

 

“Where the bloody hell is my mount! I ordered it ready at dawn!” demanded a stern voice Ned had thought never to hear again.

 

“Who is causing a ruckus in the courtyard, Ned?” asked Cat as he heard her sit up.

 

“My father…” he answered, amazed.

 

**********

 

**ROBB**

 

It was definitely warmer than he was used to under his furs. The next moment it registered to him that he felt something moving on the bed. Likely Bran or Rickon—Rickon was still half terrified of his pup, and Bran would sometimes sneak into his bed if he had a bad dream—something which seemed to happen more often now—figures of white and blue plaguing his nightmares. His pup whom he’d yet to name just yet, was curled up next to him with his paws sticking out over the edge of the bed. Suddenly his brother shifted again in the bed pushing him. It definitely was not Bran or Rickon then. Was it Jon? Jon and Robb hadn’t shared a bed since they were young children. What could he be doing here? Robb turned over inadvertently knocking over his pup who fell to the floor with a thump, followed by a yelp as Robb turned over to see the other half of his bed occupied by an older man. He almost thought it was father until he got a better look at the man’s face and saw there was no fleck of greys in his hair. He was all Stark in features, and rather muscular. Had Uncle Benjen arrived earlier than promised and without rooms prepared been told to take in with him? It had happened before. Besides, it had been years since Robb had seen Uncle Benjen—but he didn’t remember him being so burly—nor that he had slept in the without any clothes on.

 

Just then Robb’s pup managed after many attempts to pull himself back up onto the bed, grunting and nuzzling for Robb to move before stopping, taking notice of the man in the bed and oddly enough, growling.

 

The man, who Robb had assumed had been asleep through all of this, frowned and without opening his eyes asked exasperatedly, “Ben, did you sneak out one of Farlen’s pups from the kennels again?”

 

“I’m not Ben,” answered Robb, nervous but ready to challenge this stranger as to why he was in his room. Well there went his Uncle Benjen theory.

 

The stranger’s eyes snapped open and grey eyes met blue.

 

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?!” exclaimed the man at once.

 

“Robb Stark, heir to Winterfell, and it’s my room!” proclaimed Robb proudly.

 

“Stark? You look more like a Tul—” and suddenly the man stopped himself and grew quite silent, asking “Is this a dream? Are you what my son would look like if I married Catelyn Tully?”

 

“That is my mother, aye,” answered Robb, which seemed to upset the man slightly, with Robb then adding, “And I am son to Lord Eddard Stark.”

 

At that the man burst out laughing. Robb didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.


	6. Ned's Family Reunion Part TWO

**LYANNA**

 

Lyanna had risen early to sneak into the godswood for one more spar with Benjen before they went south and she would have to pretend for Brandon’s sake to know nothing of combat—less father hear of it, and she lose that privilege as well. However Benjen hadn’t been there by the usual spot by the pool. Figuring that he’d likely overslept, Lyanna had sighed and hurried to go and drag him from bed before they lost all opportunity, but as she was ready to enter the courtyard she heard her father yelling at the servants, utterly wild with anger over something about expecting his horse to be ready at dawn. Had he changed his mind and decided to come south with them and leave Benjen here in Winterfell? That was unfair—Benjen was looking forward to the trip, it’d be his first time attending a tourney, hers as well. It was something that they looked forward to doing together. It was at moments like these she hated the maxim her father constantly muttered about there always needing to be a Stark in Winterfell.

 

She’d simply have to convince father to see it as he had before. Brandon and Ned were men grown, and she had already bled for the first time a year and a moon past. They were old enough to look after themselves and their baby brother without getting into too much trouble. She’d just about made up her mind to confront her father now instead of waiting for when his temper had cooled when she heard him exclaim “Ned! Gods boy, how did you arrive from the Eyrie so—never mind. It’s a good thing you’re here!”

 

Ned had arrived in the night as a surprise for them? Lyanna could not stand it, and she immediately hurried out to the courtyard where her father and brother were, with father giving Ned what appeared to be a relieved hug—which was an odd sight to see. Father had never shown a sign of affection to any of them since mother had died—to see him now hugging Ned must mean something was wrong—terribly wrong. And further, upon seeing her brother, Lyanna noticed there was something odd about him as well. Hadn’t he been eye level with father upon his last visit to Winterfell? Now he was a few good inches shorter—but this thought immediately dissipated upon seeing the face of the elder brother she loved so dear, and to whom she could tell anything. She ran up

 

“Lya? You’re here?! I’d heard word that—godsdamn the Targaryens! And I’ll have the guards who were on duty last night brought to me in chains for failing to announce that two of my children returned to me!”

 

“What has the royal family done now, father?” she asked exasperatedly, knowing he’d been sending many ravens off to the Eyrie, Riverrun, and Storm’s End for quite some time.

 

“They’ve spread lies about having abducted you and used it to take Brandon hostage in the Riverlands! Thank the gods you only returned home. Ned, can Jon and Robert be counted upon to fulfill the alliance we agreed to? Or does he want you marrying one of his Waynwood nieces again before he commits himself?”

 

“M—my name isn’t Ned. He’s my father. I’m Jon… Jon Snow,” muttered the boy who looked so like Ned. He bit his lip in a manner quite unlike Ned, but more like she was want to do when nervous. Ned had always teased her for nibbling at her mouth—as he called it.

 

“I don’t know what Robert has put you up to, Ned, but this is a poor time to be making a joke!” scolded Lyanna with a roll of her eyes.

 

The look of shock on Ned’s face made Lyanna appreciate just how well he’d learned to hide his thoughts behind a veneer before. Clearly there was something wrong here.


	7. Bastards of Riverrun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoster Tully is given a second chance to right a wrong that haunted him on his deathbed, an action which will change his relationship with his family for years to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small plot bunny that came hopping into my head this morning and wouldn't go away.

**HOSTER**  
  
Hoster entered the birthing chamber of the hold fast he'd arranged just for this purpose and this purpose alone to be filled. He put as neutral as a face as he'd seen donned towards him when he'd visited Lord Rickard about betrothing Catelyn and Brandon all those years ago.  
  
Under normal circumstances the birth of his first grandchild should have overjoyed him, but Lord Hoster Tully found little joy in his first grandchild being a bastard.  
  
The midwife was busy coaxing the afterbirth out of Lysa while the maid washed the screaming whelp in a basin of water on a table close by.  
  
He approached, curious as to the bastard's gender.  
  
"It's a girl, milord," whispered   
  
A girl. The child was both a relief and a pain at once. For his plans it was best if the child weren't a boy, but by the same token a bastard girl was far harder to provide for than a bastard boy. Still, he would continue with his plans. He'd claim the girl as his own and give her to a small family to be raised   
  
Lysa screamed another time, and Hoster closed his eyes. Part of him wanted to sooth his daughter as she finished this messy process of giving birth, but another part of him knew it would be better not to show that he approved of what she had foolishly done. He would take care of her bastard, that much he would do, but her bastard would never be hers, not after today. She would go on and live her life like this never happened, and he would bear her shame for her... like it should have happened before. But thinking of that life was more and more like thinking of a strange dream, of a life that would not occur now, or at least not exactly the same way as before.  
  
"Mother be blessed, twins! Push milady, push!" called out the midwife, and Hoster felt his blood run cold. Not only had he killed one grandchild in that other life, he'd killed two, and likely ruined Lysa forever after.  
  
Lysa screamed hard and louder than she ever had before in her life, and Hoster could no longer keep his distance. In a moment he was at his daughter's side and took her clenched hand. She squeezed and screamed, but it seemed less feral than before.  
  
When the baby came out and the chord cut two afterbirths came out as easily, Lysa panted and looked about the room. Her eyes meeting his as she did, and then she notice that he held her hand, and for a moment he saw in his daughter's eyes something he hadn't seen since she was a little girl--love. Her eyes were big and wide and reflected the low glow of the fire in them. She murmured something which sounded like "papa" and closed her eyes to sleep.  
  
The little one writhing in the midwife's arms was covered in soft downy hair, as some babes were apt to be born with. In a week or so passed and the hair would fall off, and the babe would have as smooth a skin as its twin. The midwife stared at the bloody wailing infant in her arms and trembled.  
  
The midwife spoke, "A... b--boy, milord, and an ugly little thing at that."  
  
Hoster looked at his grandson, and beyond the fine downy dark hair could find no feature to call him ugly by, and so chalked it up to the midwife's disgust at the hair.  
  
The midwife then handed the squalling infant to the maid who nearly dropped his newborn grandson.  
  
The maid gasped and said, "A demon! Gods protect us!"  
  
"Oh gather your senses girl, the boy's no more a demon than you are," chided Hoster.  
  
A knock was heard at the door and Hoster rose to answer it. At the door, unexpected as he ever was, was his blackfish of a brother.  
  
"So you came," he said as a statement, though by the way his brother pushed into the room and answered in the next instant, it was taken by him as a question.  
  
Brynden was brash and ornery, as he'd always been, " Of course I'm bloody well here! Think I'm not going to check on how my niece is faring?"  
  
"She's sleeping now, but she's fine," answered Hoster, while the midwife and maid busied themselves with cleaning up the bloody bed.  
  
"Good, and the babe?"  
  
"Twins... a girl and a boy," answered Hoster.  
  
"Twins?" Brynden echoed, confused for a moment until Hoster mentioned Minisa's name. She had had a twin sister who was now the Lady of Harrenhal.  
  
"He's a hairy one..." said Brynden as he looked over the boy.  
  
A smirk stretched across Hoster's face unbidden as he added, "Aye, like you were."  
  
"What?" asked Brynden.  
  
"You were born with as much hair as him--when I first saw you, I'd thought some wild beast had taken to our mother's teat."  
  
Brynden looked at him askance and then snorted. It was the first time they'd shared a jape in a long while, but then Brynden had been more amenable since he'd told Lysa she could give birth to her child in utter secrecy, removing her to the hold fast that night and announcing to the rest of the castle that she had gone to visit her Whent cousins at Harrenhal. Brynden and he that night had had their first conversation that hadn't ended in an argument in years, and Hoster wanted to keep this surprisingly easy relationship with his previously estranged family members, well estranged in that dream.  
  
"Years later you probably thought you had it right at the first," scoffed Brynden.  
  
Hoster sorely wanted to retort to him, but he recalled from that dream not speaking with Brynden again until his dying days, and simply asked, "Do you truly want to bicker now?"  
  
Brynden looked surprised but then looked to Lysa and shook his head, he added softly, "Not with her as she is."  
  
"Come, let us speak outside," beckoned Hoster.  
  
And Brynden after another look at the two babes wrapped in swaddling departed with Hoster from the room to the stairwell.  
  
"What are you planning for them?" questioned Brynden as they descended the stairs to the hall at the bottom. This wasn't the first time that Brynden had asked this question, but Hoster felt that now that the babes had arrived, and simply hadn't been miscarried, it was best to be open with his brother.  
  
"They'll be sent out to be nursed by one of our smallfolk, after which, when they're well weaned, I'll claim them as my own bastards."  
  
"You'd do that?" asked Brynden, seemingly amazed.  
  
Hoster commented coolly, "You seem surprised."  
  
Brynden avoided his eyes and said, "You've been... different... that's all."  
  
Hoster thought of the way he'd died in that dream and thought to himself that it wouldn't be the same this time, and said, "I know."  
  
"That's why I can't let you claim them as yours."  
  
"What?" asked Hoster, whirling around to face his brother. They were now at the foot of the steps.  
  
"Say the boy up there gets ideas about wanting to be a lord one day and he gets the Freys or the Darrys behind him. How safe do you think Edmure will be if he does that, thinking he's your bastard?" questioned Brynden roughly.  
  
"I've thought of it," lied Hoster, and with some good humor he asked, "Have we switched roles then?"  
  
"I've always had a concern about the welfare of your children, Hoster. They come first with me... even before you," admitted Brynden, though he seemed to wish he hadn't said it a moment later.  
  
That made sense though, recalling that other life. Gods it made so much more sense.  
  
Hoster sighed, "It's a chance I'll have to take."  
  
"No, you won't Hoster, cause I'll claim 'em."  
  
"Brynden... I..." Hoster managed to say as he searched for words.  
  
Before he could find what to say, Brynden grabbed him by the shoulders and growled, "Don't you bloody say anything else."  
  
And the matter was settled.


	8. Love Returns All -- Cat/Ned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn receives Ned's bones at Renly's camp, and something miraculous occurs, like something out of a song.

**CATELYN**  
  
The Silent sisters carried in a chest from the dark outside the tent and then she knew the gift that Petyr had brought her. He had brought her Ned's bones.  
  
"A goodwill gesture from Tyrion Lannister, to show his faith in wishing to treat with House Stark and bring this senseless war to an end," Petyr said as the chest was laid before her at her feet.  
  
The chest was made of weirwood, with a grey painted direwolf running across its lid--as though any decoration could replace the husband she had had, the father of her children, and the man she had learned to love ever so deeply it felt as though her heart were being ripped from her chest now just to look upon the chest that she knew contained his bones.  
  
Petyr began, "Cat..."  
  
"Leave me," she stated firmly with a rather hoarse voice, doing her best to try and hold back the emotion while she could, she would not weep in front of Petyr--no, she could not. Her tears were for Ned and only Ned would share in them.  
  
Petyr, to his credit, obeyed the command like the boy who'd come to foster at Riverrun all those years ago at learned to do. The Silent sisters backed away to the edges of the tent, as though they wished to vanish from its perimeter by walking through the canvas material. But Catelyn cared not for them now, only Ned.  
  
With a heavy heart, she sank to her knees before the chest and opened the lid only to see his bones, bare and white like many others she'd seen throughout her life. Were these Ned's bones? They looked so small compared to the man she'd taken as husband. Leaning in she took a closer look at his skull--was this the head that had been so rudely torn from his neck and displayed upon the city walls? Gods, help her... she could not continue without tears streaming down her face now. Half in grief, and half for want of Ned she leaned in and kissed that cold skull atop the head, her tears dripping down and mixing with the bones and wood of the chest as she did.  
  
Catelyn was next blinded by a sudden white light which then appeared from within the chest, engulfing her husband's bones. Unable to see and stunned, Catelyn fell back from her position and covered her eyes in an attempt to protect what little vision she did have left after that sudden shock of light.  
  
Cracking could be heard, and the sound of the rustle of leaves, like in a godswood before a storm. Wind suddenly picked up and seemed to surround the chest, disturbing what parchments she had been looking at before Petyr had entered. Slowly her eyes returned to her, though the blinding light had yet to dissipate. A dark figure now stood in the chest from where she'd recoiled, a figure which at once looked familiar and yet different all the same. Elsewhere in the tent she saw Silent sisters fleeing out of the tent wherever they could.  
  
And then the light faded and the wind died down leaving naught but a man, a naked man standing in the chest. Not just any naked man, it was Ned... her Ned! He looked pale and thin from hunger. He then seemed to collapse before the chest and Catelyn without thinking moved to catch him in her arms as he fell. He was real, he was flesh and blood, he was with her again. Gods be praised Ned was with her again.  
  
"Ned? Is this really you? By the gods please say yes," she urged furvantly.  
  
"c--Cat?" he whispered weakly, as though speaking were something he was now unaccustomed to.  
  
She held him tighter in her embrace and kissed the top of his head as she did, half in awe at what a single kiss and few tears had returned to her--no it hadn't been them. It had been the Gods' doing. Aye, that's what it was.  
  
"Oh, Ned! Ned, the gods have given you back to me. The gods have given you back to me!" she repeated over and over again as a prayer.  
  
It was then that the joyous moment was interrupted, by Petyr.  
  
"L--lord Stark?" questioned Petyr who stood at the threshold of the tent aghast.  
  
Ned's body tensed in her grasp, the air suddenly going cold in the tent. He pushed himself up, he seemed almost unsteady on his feet, and a notable limp was present--with Catelyn seeing a healed wound upon his leg she had not seen before. But Ned was nothing if not persistent, approaching Petyr single-mindedly and without a care that he was without any clothes in that instant. Petyr seemed frozen there for an instant, his eyes wide, and just as he seemed to recover from the awe of seeing Ned returned to life, Ned grabbed him by the front of his doublet and dragged him into the tent and began to choke him.  
  
Catelyn stood in that instant calling, "Ned!"  
  
All that came from Petyr was garbled sounds in the approximation of her name.  
  
"Ned!" she shouted.  
  
But Ned was single-minded, "He betrayed us! This little worm betrayed your trust and conspired to have me killed!"  
  
Catelyn froze in that instant. Petyr had betrayed them? Little Petyr, the boy who had been so much a brother to her and friend to Edmure? That might be or not, but what Catelyn couldn't do is just stand by and let Ned do this. And so she stepped and placed her hand on his tensed arms.  
  
"Stop, Ned... let him go... he has guest rite!"  
  
"I'm finishing what should have been done outside his brothel!" snapped Ned, his eyes furious and as hard as steel.  
  
"Please, Ned... not like this..." she urged, her eyes meeting his, and Ned let Petyr drop to the ground. In that next instant Catelyn grabbed at the dagger that Rodrik had given her before he'd gone on to Winterfell. She looked down at the man with grey-green eyes and salt and pepper hair whom she had called brother.  
  
"T--thank you, Cat."  
  
But Catelyn was swift and in that moment she'd moved, grabbing him while he was still weak and on the ground, and had that dagger at his throat.  
  
She insisted, "I want to know how."  
  
"What?" asked Petyr.  
  
"How did you betray my husband?" she demanded, the knife pressing harder at his throat. Petyr squirmed in the next moment, but was still too weak to break from her  
  
"The g--gold cloaks! I paid off the gold cloaks for the Queen! He'd have let Stannis into the city! I couldn't have that!" squealed Petyr.  
  
"Stannis is rightful King! The Queen's children are bastards born of incest!" snapped Ned.  
  
"Your rightful King who cared not that as you sat rotting in a Black Cell! Where was he when Joffrey called you to the Sept of Baelor and took your head?" retorted Petyr, and for that Catelyn pricked Petyr ever so slightly with the dagger, drawing just the tiniest bit of blood.  
  
"You answer my questions Petyr, or by the Seven, I swear I'll kill you now."  
  
"And break guest rite? You wouldn't dare! Not while the Queen still has Sansa... and Arya!" said Petyr with an odd little laugh.  
  
"That's a lie. I saw Arya escaped before I died!" insisted Ned.  
  
Arya escaped? Of course her little wolf would... Gods where had she gone?!  
  
"She still has Sansa! Kill me, and you'll never get her back. Who would deal with those who kill the messenger?"  
  
And it was in that moment, Catelyn saw the man who Petyr was. Not the little boy who'd arrived scared and timid without a friend in the world at her father's castle, speaking of an old witch in a cave near his father's keep and sheep. No, she saw the man who would worm his way out of anything and everything if you let him.  
  
"You forget yourself Petyr... we have the Kingslayer. In the name of my husband... I find you guilty of treachery, deceit, and betrayal. Any last words?"  
  
"Cat..." stated Ned, but Catelyn ignored him. She had to keep her mind on what she had to do.  
  
"You love me Cat--you'd never do this! You don't have it in you," insisted Petyr.  
  
That was the wrong thing to say. And with a slice of the dagger, she cut open Petyr's throat, and let his body fall spraying blood over the ground as he writhed and then stopped moving entirely. In an exhaustion of her nerves, Catelyn dropped the dagger to the ground.  
  
"Cat..." whispered Ned, in shock at what she saw.  
  
"He betrayed you, and because of him I lost you. Now that I have you back, I'm not going to let anyone take you from me again," she said possessively. After a few moments, Ned nodded, still obviously in shock at the sight he'd seen. It was only then that she truly took in the sight of Ned's nakedness, and she took off her cloak and gave it to him.  
  
"Cat, you'll freeze."  
  
"You need something to cover you until we can get you clothes."  
  
"And what of him?" asked Ned.  
  
"I don't plan to stay here long enough to let him be found. We get you clothes and a horse, we gather my escort, and we ride for Riverrun tonight," she said as he draped her smaller cloak across his body--it looking almost comical draped across his broad shoulders and only coming to about his lower calf on his tall frame, but it would do for the nonce.  
  
They managed to slip out of the camp without anyone seeing them that night. Renly was too busy feasting from yet another tourney to care, and she had made sure no one had come to her tent until they were prepared to leave. A horse couldn't be found for Ned, and so she had to ride with him, but she did not mind. In fact she reveled feeling his warm body around her as he urged their horse on. He was hers and she was his, and nothing would separate them again, of that she would make sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt at AH (dot) com:
> 
> After Ned's bones are returned to Cat. What would happen if as soon as Catelyn open the box containing Eddard Stark's bones, an Alien Space Bat (ASB) causes Eddard Stark to come back to life? He is returned to life in body and mind. He is not a skeleton but he is still sick due to his imprisonment. Let's say that the ASB healed nearly all his injuries. Meaning he will eventually recover but is still sick. He remembers everything up to his death.


	9. Ned's Family Reunion Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, after some prodding by a poster, I managed to squeeze my muse to produce a continuation of "Ned's Family Reunion". Enjoy!

**RICKARD**

 

 

 

He sat in his chair—the old throne of winter in the Great Hall. Much seemed changed about the castle since the night previous. Somehow a Sept had sprouted overnight in the courtyard, and brighter tapestries hung on the walls crudely embroidered with celebrations of Stark history. He felt far more at home here, sitting among the tapestries depicting Bran the Builder, Theon the Hungry Wolf, and many of the other great men of his house. Though Rickard was left confused by a newer tapestry which featured bells of all things. The embroidery on it was exquisite and more refined than the other tapestries--likely southron made.

 

He had been making ready for riding south for Brandon's wedding, at least until the servants had impeded him. Then he'd come accross Lyanna leaving the godswood instead of south of the Neck, claiming that she'd yet to leave for Harrenhal. And then here was this boy who looked like his Ned, but called himself a Snow and said the year was 297. Servants who either looked older than he remembered them, or were unrecognizable to him confirmed the boy's story, which only seemed to be more likely when another sight came running out of the Great Keep, a younger version of Lyanna--at least that's what he'd thought she was until she'd asked "Jon" who they were.

 

297... gods to have missed the span of six and ten years. Impossible, and yet, here he was. All that "Jon" told him was that they'd both died in the Rebellion.

 

Lyanna, as always spoke her mind too freely. That was her grandmother's Flint blood in her, of that Rickard had little doubt. "I can't believe Ned of all of us would have a bastard."

 

"Lyanna," grumbled Rickard automatically.

 

"Forgive me father... nephew... but Brandon? Aye. That I could see easily. In fact I'm sure that he got a maid big with her daughter when he visited Winterfell for Benjen's nameday. Oh and where's Benjen?"

 

"Lyanna!"

 

All the while "Jon" stood there, as stiff and quiet as his father ever was as a boy. If he was Ned's bastard that was, but that Rickard would discover from Ned.

 

"The truth is... Aunt, I am here and my father has claimed me and raised me with his trueborn children. As for Uncle Benjen, he joined the Night's Watch--though he does visit us when the Lord Commander has business with my father."

 

At that Rickard frowned. A Snow being raised among the pack? True, there was the precedent for it with Lonnel Snow of course, but Lonny had been... well, a swamp wolf and half-crannogman. And while the rest of the North did not loathe the crannogmen, there was no great respect or love for them either. So Lonny had been easy to discount, to ignore among the large pack. But a bastard who looked the spitting image of his father and raised alongside his trueborn siblings? That was odd. Rather odd.

 

"Who's your mother?" Rickard asked, curious as to who had made Ned forget himself.

 

"Jon" flushed red in that moment and looked down at his boots.

 

Rickard sighed, "Come now. There's no shame in having a whore for a mother. You're not at fault for what she chose to make of her life."

 

Jon shook his head and with a voice that cracked answered, "I don't know. Truly. My father has not spoken to me of her at all. He refuses to even tell me her name."

 

"That's cruel!" objected Lyanna. She then rose and hugged "Jon"

 

She then whispered rather loudly, no doubt to annoy him, "Don't worry, I'll have it out of him for you. Ned could never refuse me anything."

 

Or it could possibly a smart decision--especially if the boy's mother were noble. By not acknowledging who his mother were, there would be less complications about future inheritances. But then why raise him at Winterfell?

 

Lyanna was making the boy uncomfortable, so he intervened. "You'll leave things be, Lyanna. Jon is your nephew. Let his father deal with the matter how he will."

 

Besides there were always other ways of discovering the truth. Servants were always prone to gossip and imaginings of their lords. Surely some of them would have wrinkled out the mystery by now.

 

"Who's yelling in here?" asked another voice, and Rickard turned to see what looked to be a ghost. It was a girl, though she looked almost a boy in her disheveled clothes.

 

"Jon... who are they?" asked the younger Lyanna.

 

"Arya... you're not going to believe this, but this is our Aunt Lyanna and our grandfather..."

 

The girl looked at both himself and Lyanna with scrutiny.

 

When she finally did respond to her half-brother, she said, "But they're dead. They have statues in the crypt."

 

We both have statues in the crypt? Ned... what have you been doing?

 

"Aye, and yet here they are. You've seen their statues as much as I have. It's almost impossible to believe..." admitted Jon.

 

"Gods... she looks exactly like I used to!" exclaimed Lyanna as she took in the sight of the younger girl. Lyanna then abandoned Jon to look over the younger she-wolf.

 

"No I don't."

 

Lyanna knelt down to the girl's height and said, "I remember how I looked well enough, and to see you, is almost like looking in a Myrish glass from many namedays ago."

 

"But you're pretty. I'm just Arya Horseface..." said the girl.

 

"Who said that?!" demanded Lyanna.

 

Jon however seemed to know, and a frown stretched across his face as he said, "What else have Beth and Jeyne been saying?"

 

Arya however just turned her head to the side and didn't answer--that was one habit Lyanna and her younger lookalike did have in common.

 

"Who are Beth and Jeyne?" questioned Lyanna, turning to "Jon".

 

"Jon" explained to Lyanna, "Beth Cassel and Jeyne Poole. Ser Rodrik's daughter and the steward's daughter. They're friends of Sansa, our sister."

 

"And Sansa just lets them say things like that?!" exclaimed Lyanna.

 

This was getting out of hand. Again, Lyanna was making a grandchild of his uncomfortable. But that was Lyanna--always sticking her nose into things where it often didn't belong. One of these days it was going to get her into trouble.

 

"Arya? Did I hear the name correctly?" asked Rickard in an attempt to distract her from Lyanna's attention.

 

"Aye. That is my name." answered the girl with a stare that almost challenged him. She may look like Lyanna come again, but there was a bit more steel to this little she-wolf than Lyanna had. Not that Lyanna didn't have steel underneath as well, but her steel was usually kept hidden, slipping out only when provoked. Here the sharp edge of his granddaughter was raw and present with not even the pretension of guile.

 

"I can't believe Ser Rodrik and Vayon would raise their daughters to be so... mean!" protested Lyanna, convincing herself of some grand speech or other she would deliver to them.

 

He admitted under his breath, "I will say this, you have your namesake's manner of speaking...as blunt as a battle axe."

 

"Really? How else am I like her?" asked Arya as she took a few steps forward to Rickard.

 

Rickard asked "Hasn't your father spoken of your great-grandmother to you?" His mother-in-law had only seen fit to die after Ned's second visit from the Eyrie.

 

"No... though Old Nan used to say Bran climbs the walls like she used to..."

 

"Old Nan still lives! She must be ancient by now," stated Lyanna. And like that her mood had shifted as easily as the direction of the wind.

 

"But beyond that, nothing?" Rickard paused for a moment, something was wrong here. Why had Ned told so little of their family to his children? Clearly he had some things to discuss with his son.

 

"Lord Stark! Lord Stark!" cried a voice from out in the corridor that was accompanied by the heavy sound of footfalls. It was just then that a servant ran into the hall. She looked about confused.

 

"Say what you will, woman!" snapped Rickard when the confusion on the woman's face had gone from mildly entertaining to downright frustrating to behold.

 

"A... a Lady has appeared in the birthing chamber... my... lord. She says... she says she's Lady Lyarra."

 

At the sound of Lyarra's name, Rickard stood up immediately. Lyarra was here? Gods, she'd died giving birth to the babe after Benjen--she and the babe both had perished. The babe had come sooner than expected and Maester Walys fetched too late because the damn midwife hadn't trusted the "bastard maester". Some woman that Lyarra had taken a shine to as Rickard had courted the opinion of Hoster for a potential betrothal between their houses. The woman was distrustful of all "Southrons" and spoke of how the North had been better before the dragons had come to the continent as though she'd lived then. Lyarra had brought her in to spite him when he'd sent Brandon to foster in Barrowton. The cruel thing being that Walys had said that if he had been sent for, Lyarra and the babe might have lived.

 

"Fetch the maester, immediately!" ordered Rickard to the servant who with a quick nod of the head scurried out of the hall and into the courtyard. He wasn't going to lose Lyarra again, not if he had any say in the matter.

 

Rickard then turned to Jon and said, "Fetch your father, I must see to my wife." "Jon" nodded his head and ushering Arya out with him, departed the Great Hall. Lyanna stood there aghast at the news.

 

As he crossed the courtyard headed for the Great Keep, all Rickard could wonder was if the gods would be so cruel as to give Lyarra back only to take her again.


	10. Ned's Family Reunion Part Four

  
**LYARRA**  
  
  
She had not left the birthing chambers since giving birth to little Rodrik. However an endless stream of visitors had come to see her since the Maester had kept the infection at bay—or so he said. He’d also said to keep little Rodrik as warm as she possibly could. She did not recognize this Maester, he wasn’t the flowery Southron that was for sure. Rickard had visited her immediately, looking as if he’d aged a decade and a little more since her confinement had begun. And he wasn’t the only one. Soon her little Lya and Brandon had come to check her and their new brother as well—and gods, where had her little girl and boy gone? How had they come to be replaced with these… these… double walkers who talked as if they knew her and yet she could hardly recognize them.  
  
  
Rickard talked of being brought across time, that he himself had not been from this time either, but now he was here in the year 297, though he was from 281. Gods, what a tangled mess this was. Truth be told Lyarra thought herself half dreaming, until Ned had come and seen her. He had been just six namedays when last she’d seen him, and now… gods, the man who’d entered was just as quiet as her pup had always been, just as serious, and they stood and walked exactly the same. Seeing Ned a man grown, and older than herself… gods she’d begged to wake up from this nightmare there and then. Why had the Gods been so cruel? Who was this old man with more salt than pepper in his hair calling himself her husband? Aye she could see he’d once been Rickard, but who was he now? Why had the gods taken her children from her and given her these strangers in return? They did not need her anymore. They did not truly want her either—to be sure they were happy and glad to see her, but after a hug (at her insistence—to ensure she wasn’t dreaming) and a few words, the awkward silence always fell over her. But Rodrik needed her, aye. That he did. And they couldn’t take him away from her—she wouldn’t let them. She’d be damned to let Rodrik go and have some ancient old man come in and claim to have once been the suckling babe at her breast. Having aged all those years in the blink of an eye.  
  
  
It was into this environment that a lady calling herself Lady Catelyn Stark entered the room. The woman was red of hair, blue of eyes, and pale of skin, and dressed like a Northerner, except for a silly neck ruff that served no purpose beyond a frivolous fashion choice as far as Lyarra was concerned. A Southron in spirit, if not birth as well, she’d determined.  
  
  
“I know this all must be strange to you, my lady,” she began respectfully.  
  
  
“To say the least!” snapped Lyarra in return.  
  
  
“But that being given, I would like to answer any questions you may have… well, what would you like me to call you?” asked Catelyn.  
  
  
“You’re Ned’s wife, aren’t you?” asked Lyarra.  
  
  
“Aye.”  
  
  
Lyarra had no intention letting up on her so-called gooddaughter, “And you’re a southron, right?”  
  
  
“Aye again, you might know me better as Catelyn Tully, mayhaps?”  
  
  
That name sounded familiar. Lyarra racked her memories to find something, and eventually came up with a memory.  
  
  
“But I thought you were to inherit Riverrun? Rickard used to talk about betrothing your little sister to Brandon to me. I said it wouldn’t do.”  
  
  
Catelyn smiled and said, “I am afraid the birth of a much younger brother put aside all training I had been given in preparation for being my father’s heir.”  
  
  
“More’s the pity,” huffed Lyarra. For one thing she wouldn’t be here, and her grandchildren wouldn’t be half southron. But what was done was done.  
  
  
“You may call me Lady Arra—all of my family used to call me as such. Tell me, how has Ned been as a husband to you?”  
  
  
Catelyn blinked several times, caught off guard at first by her directness before shaking her head and saying, “In some ways he is all that a noblewoman could want in a husband. He can be kind, gentle, thoughtful, loving, and fierce when he needs to be. While he may be a little too serious too often, he has it in him to appreciate a good jape. He’s attentive to the children far more than I expected of any lord.”  
  
  
“Yes, yes, and as a husband does he see to your needs?”  
  
  
Catelyn blinked once, twice, thrice, four times before she managed to ask, “Excuse me?”  
  
  
Obviously not.  
  
  
Sighing before speaking she began, “When I first married Rickard, there were some things that I needed to teach him to make the act more engaging than a simple thrust and exit he was used to. It was laborious, but fruitful for us both in the end, given how many children we’ve had. I always told myself that when my sons would show the first signs of becoming men, I’d tell them—for their and their future wives’ own good—how to please a lady wife without that awkward muddle I had to go through. Mine own mother had enough sense to tell me a few things before her death, and I had much to add that she did not know. So I ask you again, does he please you in your bed, gooddaughter?”  
  
  
“Aye. Our first coupling was… well, the only thing good to come out of it was our son, Robb.”  
  
  
Lyarra nodded in approval—good, they were fertile. To have had a child upon the first coupling, aye very fertile indeed. “Then he must have done something right, for a woman cannot conceive unless she herself finds pleasure in the act. You did eventually find pleasure in it, I trust?”  
  
  
Catelyn, “If it is all right with you, I think I’d like to refrain from discussing my marriage bed with your son any further.”  
  
  
Southron prude. A fish is the perfect sigil for her. She’s likely as cold as one in bed.  
  
  
Rodrik had had his fill and began to whine, needing to be burped, so she slung him over her shoulder and began patting his little back as she asked, “And how many children have you and my son had beyond Robb?”  
  
  
“Our next eldest is our daughter, Sansa. She looks rather like myself when I was her age. Robb takes after my brother and father in looks. After Sansa is Arya,”  
  
  
Lyarra flinched to hear her own mother’s name uttered once more. In a way that only awoke a small tender feeling within her. Ned, her Ned, had named a daughter after her mother. He hadn’t forgotten her as she’d feared might happen.  
  
  
Catelyn continued, “Arya looks rather like yourself I’d imagine, when you were younger.”  
  
  
“Then he chose the wrong name for the little wolf pup. My mother had hair as red as yours. It would have been more fitting to name her Sansa and your Sansa, Arya,” commented Lyarra.  
  
  
Catelyn looked at her oddly then, and asked once again, “Truly? Your mother had hair as red as mine?”  
  
  
“Aye, nearly all Flints of the Mountains are red-heads. That’s how you can tell the different Flint branches apart, you know. The Flints of Widow’s Watch are brown of hair, the Flints of Flint’s Finger are black of hair, and the Flints of the mountains are all red of hair—only they call it being “kissed by fire” I think. Or something like that.”  
  
  
Catelyn stated as though rather relieved, “Then that would explain why all our children, except Arya, are red of hair.”  
  
  
“All, but Arya? The Gods are surely saying something by that!” she exclaimed as Rodrik at long last let out a nice big burp and she nestled her little wolf pup back close to her body, to keep him warm.  
  
  
“And that’s all, so far? Only three?” queried Lyarra.  
  
  
And only one of them a boy.  
  
  
Catelyn shook her head and said, “Nay, I have two little boys of mine own beyond Arya. There’s Brandon, though we call him Bran, and Rickon. I would like to have another soon, but the Gods have yet to see me quicken with child since Rickon came off my breast.”  
  
  
Lyarra exclaimed with a grin, “Three boys and two girls, and you’d like another still? Why gooddaughter, you are near as lusty as any wolf!”  
  
  
At that Catelyn blushed but then rebounded by asking, “Would you like to meet them?”  
  
  
Feeling that the modesty was falsely held for a woman who’d given birth to so many children, Lyarra dismissed it from her mind and said, “Aye, fetch your pack of wolf pups, and they can meet their new Uncle.”  
  
  
Catelyn nodded and departed the room. Gods, if she stayed here, in this year that would mean all of Ned’s children would be this one’s elders. And if Rickard wanted more children, which she was inclined to want herself seeing as her pups had been most cruelly taken from her, they’d all be far younger now. And when they were grown, Rickard would give their children land elsewhere in the North mayhaps.  
  
  
That led Lyarra into wondering—who is Lord of Winterfell now? Rickard or Ned?  
  
  
While contemplating that question a knock was heard, and Catelyn appeared  
  
  
“Gods, gooddaughter, did you have them waiting out in the corridor?” questioned Lyarra, shocked at how  
  
  
“Aye. As I said, I would not overwhelm you to begin with.”  
  
  
And so in entered the red pack as Lyarra thought of them. Robb and Sansa were completely in the mold of their mother—of that there was no doubt. Arya indeed was a she-wolf pup almost reminiscent of Branda. But Brandon and Rickon? They were most certainly more Flint than either Stark or Tully. It made the part of her that had loved to hear her mother tell tales of climbing the mountains in the far North, leap for joy. Brandon especially reminded her of her mother in small ways. The shape of his head, the tint of his hair in the light, but most of all the scratches on his hands—the sign of a true Flint who loved to climb. Rickon was her gruff Uncle Byran in miniature with the same dour pout and questioning eyes. Aye, she loved those two on sight. She gave each of her grandchildren a small hug (as much as she was able), but admittedly lingered longer on Brandon and Rickon than she did the others--attention which they seemed rather glad to receive.  
  
  
“Why isn’t Jon here? He’s as much her grandchild as the rest of us!” pouted Arya.  
  
  
“Jon? You didn’t mention a Jon,” stated Lyarra flatly.  
  
  
“Jon is our half-brother,” answered Robb immediately, not giving his mother the chance to speak.  
  
  
“Bastard half-brother,” added Sansa.  
  
  
“Bastard half-brother… you tolerate a _bastard_ here, under your own roof?!” exclaimed Lyarra. What kind of soft-hearted Southron fancy was this?  
  
  
“Children, leave,” stated Catelyn curtly.  
  
  
Lyarra held tightly onto Rickon, who had remained on the bed after his hug and was fascinated by his little uncle. “No, they stay.”  
  
  
After a short contest of stares, her gooddaughter finally admitted, “I would not speak unkindly about their half-brother in front of them.”  
  
  
The reaction from the children was palpable. Too palpable to pass over.  
  
  
“Look at them, Catelyn. As you see, they already know you do in private, so whether you do so in front of them or not is of little consequence. Out with it madam. What soft-hearted notion allowed you to tolerate a bastard under the same roof as your own children? It is a dishonor to them and yourself! Was it this so called “mother’s mercy” I hear the Manderlys speak of?” questioned Lyarra, incensed on her grandchildren’s behalf. Arya of them all stared at her with utter surprise.  
  
  
“Do you think if I had any choice in the matter that he would still be here?” growled Catelyn in obvious frustration. And then it clicked, Ned had forced her to accept the bastard. Gods, was he as foolish as that? Or did he hate his lady wife so? Or was it even worse than that? Did he care so little for his children? This was something that had to be corrected, immediately.  
  
  
Lyarra was quiet for a moment, before turning to Robb and asking, “Robb, could you be a good boy and fetch your father? It appears I have put off a conversation with my son for rather too long. One does not mistreat one’s lady wife and put one’s children in such foolish danger.”  
  
  
“Jon’s not a danger! He’s my brother!” protested Arya. Her sister tried to pull her back from the edge of the bed, only to have the she-wolf slip out of her grasp.  
  
  
Lyarra stared at the fervent look in her granddaughter’s face. She recognized that… Branda had always looked as cross when they’d quarreled. Lyarra turned to Catelyn then and said, “The bastard’s already at work dividing your children’s loyalties, I see… ‘tis worse than I thought.”  
  
  
Robb continued to stand there, imitating the fish his grandfather likely was. Lyarra spurred, “Well don’t just stand there boy, go and fetch your father!”  
  
  
“But he’s meeting with… the rest of them in the crypts… he said he wasn’t to be disturbed—” began Robb.  
  
  
“Disturb him! This is more important than whatever he’s doing in the bloody crypts!” shouted Lyarra, causing Rodrik to cry. Robb left as quick as a dog with his tail tucked between his legs. She adjusted herself and moved to sooth Rodrik. Rickon was ushered off the bed by Catelyn, and back into his mother’s arms to give her the room to maneuver as she needed.  
  
  
Lyarra then declared, “Now… while we wait, I want to hear more about this bastard.”


	11. King Aegon VI, Part One

**_King Aegon the VI_ **

  
**AEGON**  
  
The Queen Dowager had been found dead in her bed a sennight after her nameday.  
  
“Do you know what killed her?” asked Aegon as he stood at the foot of the bed, clutching the end of the frame as he stared at his grandmother’s corpse. She was laying upright almost in a sitting position, as the bed would allow.  
  
Ser Bonifer stood there with only a robe tied over his shift for modesty, but then so was Aegon. There’d hardly been time to dress when the servants had urged him he should wake. Ser Bonifer was the man Aegon considered more a father to him than any other, and now he shook his head and closed his eyes. He then took a heavy sigh that was weighted with much grief and then admitted, “I awoke to find her like this, cold and unresponsive.”  
  
Aegon pointed out, “She looks happy doesn’t she? There’s a slight smile on her face.”  
  
Ser Bonifer said nothing for a moment before approaching Aegon as tears treacherously fell down his cheeks. He took Aegon, his King, by the chin and lifted the young man of eight and ten’s eyes to meet his own.  
  
“You must be strong for the court, your grace. No tears.”  
  
Aegon pulled his head from Ser Bonifer’s grasp and his hands were at the tears in the next instance along with a few assurances that he wouldn’t be a mess in front of the court.  
  
“She should be afforded a great funeral in the Sept of Baelor. She was the daughter of a King, the wife of a King, and the grandmother of a King. She deserves no less honor.”  
  
Ser Bonifer only nodded his head.  
  
“Mother will be here on the morrow once word reaches her. Rhaenys should be told, even if she’s in confinement in Storm’s End. And I suppose Uncle Viserys should receive a letter as well,” said Aegon as he thought of who to alert within the family, and who to expect to arrive in time for the funeral.  
  
“A letter should be sent to Cracklaw Point,” urged Ser Bonifer, but at this Aegon frowned. That was one thing Aegon did not like about Ser Bonifer, he always seemed insistent to try and mend the gap between Aemon and Aegon. He had thought that that had been his grandmother’s influence on him, but apparently not.  
  
Eager to distract from thinking of his half-brother, Aegon then mentioned, “And Baelor must attend. She’d want him there,” insisted Aegon, though truth be told Aegon was simply attributing what he thought to the Queen Dowager, and he knew it. Any excuse to see the return of Baelor, the boy who he considered more a brother than the half-brother he actually had, Aegon would take. The youth who while still young, though only by a few paltry namedays, yet managed to fill his mind and dreams.  
  
Ser Bonifer, the father of Baelor was almost stoic in response to the news his son might be called back to court. And he assured the King, “I am sure the Grandmaester will send a raven to the Bloody Gate this day, and Gods be good, he’ll arrive in time.”  
  
“Gods be good, and the Blackfish willing,” stated Aegon as he thought of the indomitable knight to whom Baelor had been squired. All that left then was telling Dany, and she was not likely to take the news of her mother’s death that well. Aegon wasn’t looking forward to the experience to say the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an annoying plot bum that wouldn't leave me to type Episode 5 of Trystane in Meereen in peace until I'd done something with it.
> 
> Try and guess the situation/point of departure/scenario.


	12. Joned Part One

**JONED**

_**Part One** _

 

“We must be off, captain!” I insisted. There wasn’t much time left if we didn’t set sail now, before the dawn.

 

“But what about Father? We can’t leave without him! You said he was coming!” shouted Arya rather petulantly, appearing from behind a barrel she’d hidden behind most likely when she’d seen him and

 

That was the lie, the dreadful terrible lie… so many lies I’d told that just ate away at me when I laid abed at night with nothing but the darkness surrounding me. But like the lie I’d told before to save my girls… but that was another lifetime, although not too different than this one, of that I had been sure.

 

“There’s no more time, Arya,” I said sternly. Too sternly I saw given her reaction.

 

“You may look like him, but you’re not father, Jon!” she spat and then tried to rush past me. With my speed, I was able to catch her and pick her up before she did something foolish, like run down the retracting gangplank and into the city. She wouldn’t be safe there, not with Joffrey as King now. This was for the best.

I held her tightly as she thrashed with me having her over my shoulder. She made walking the launching ship far more difficult, especially going down the steps below deck. We nearly ended up tumbling to the bottom, but I kept my focus on my task and never let up. We’d be safe with her and in the cabin down below that they all shared. And it was there I found the crying Sansa, wiping her tears by a candle with Jeyne Poole attempting and failing to comfort her. It was only with the door locked behind me, and the key slipped up my sleeve did I bother with letting Arya down. I was immediately barraged with a flurry of punches and kicks as I collapsed to the floor.

 

“Traitor!” she called out over and over again, infuriated and depressed all at once. I didn’t try to even defend myself as some part of me… some small part of Jon that had resisted the melding of our minds agreed with her, and so did I. After all, I knew all too well what it meant to lose a father once… and now it was happening all again. I had tried to stop it, prevent things from going all wrong in King’s Landing. I’d told father not to trust Littlefinger. I told him that he’d betray him the moment he saw a profit in it. And yet because of Cat—Lady Stark, he’d trusted the man and called my foreknowledge the jealousy of a boy wanting to be more of a man than he was ready for. This hadn’t even been my first plan, just a backup incase Father had died… and he was, I was, he was, all over again and there was little I could do. Gods why did I have to be so bloody trusting?

 

“We’re a pack… a family. The pack doesn’t leave each other behind!” she sobbed. Her punches were either getting weaker or I was now numb to the pain they inflicted. After all what indictment could be worse than condemning part of yourself to the death you knew that awaited.

 

It was then that Arya had given in to her tears and simply began to cry, and for the first time in her life, she turned to Sansa over myself. This sudden want of sisterly affection wasn’t lost on Sansa as it clearly caught her off guard, and yet she looked at me with eyes that narrowed in accusation. I had ruined her betrothal though, long before tonight. Else wise I’d have had to have fight her _AND_ Arya trying to get off the ship most likely.

 

_It had been at the incident where Nymeria had bit Joffrey. I had been fighting with Arya and the butcher’s boy, determined to prevent whatever had happened at the Ruby Ford from happening. But I had had to take a piss, and had been gone for only a few moments… moments enough for Joffrey and Sansa to arrive, Joffrey to have withdrawn Lion’s Tooth and begin threatening Mycah over it. I had rushed to intervene then, but Arya stepped between Joffrey and the butcher’s boy, and just as the she-wolf was about to bite the prince, Ghost had come rushing out ahead of me, and tackled Nymeria, sending both direwolves into the river in a fight of their own. Joffrey had then brought down the sword and pressed it against Arya’s cheek. I tried to hurry my legs faster—I had to save her, I couldn’t let my little sister die, not again._

_But it had been Sansa who’d interrupted then and pleaded with her on Arya’s behalf._

_Sansa had begun, “My sister is but young, and foolish, my prince, she didn’t—”_

_But the blood lust was up with Joffrey, striking fear in me when I saw it. I’d only seen that on the battlefield when men would return from fighting caked in blood and mud in equal amounts so that they’d mixed a horrid auburn color. Joffrey smacked Sansa with the back of his hand, saying “Out of my way, she interrupted my fun, and now she’ll pay!”_

_By then I had arrived, sword drawn and ready to distract the prince with myself. My shout though had given Arya the opportunity to disarm Joffrey, causing him to fall on his back and whimper worse that a pup begging for its mother. Somehow in that time, Sansa had seen something different in the Prince. She no longer fawned over him nor spoke of how she looked forward to wedding him and being Queen. Mostly she kept to herself, Septa Mordane, and Jeyne Poole._

_I had gone to the King first, telling Arya and Sansa to take the wolves and go. I thought that if I had told him what had happened, that it would matter somehow. But I had almost forgotten that to the King I was just Ned’s bastard, good to indulge and spin a yarn about some mischief he’d gotten up to in the Vale about, but to actually believe when the Queen and the Prince came next saying Joffrey had been attacked by the direwolves? No. Thankfully though, they had all run away in the nonce._

 

That had been a hard lesson to be reminded of… and I regretted what I’d put Jon through the first time that I now understood all too well.

 

“Jon, are you all right?” asked a voice tremulously. I was brought out of my reverie to see Jeyne Poole kneeling by my side with what looked like a cloth that she was moving closer to my face. Instinctively I moved aside.

 

“Arya gave you a black eye and split your lip… I’m only trying to clean it up,” she insisted, and with a trained reluctance, I let Jeyne tend to me. My eyes darted about the room then, it seemed some time had passed while I had been lost in my thoughts and memories for both Sansa and Arya now slept together in the same hammock, curled closer to each other than I had ever seen them before. Well, at least something good came from all of this.  
  
It was for their protection… it would save them, if not my other self. But then if I did save him, would that mean that I wouldn’t return to when I was ten? I—Jon, I mean. It had been a long time since I’d separate Jon and myself, but tonight… tonight I felt just as much at war with myself as I had when I’d first awoke in Jon’s mind.

 

_“Father is coming Jon!” shouted a boy who I would have thought was Benjen at first, until I’d opened my eyes and seen a young Robb instead._

_“Jon?” I’d questioned, but then I’d felt an equal presence recognize and accept the name. It was nearly impossible to describe what waking up and only half remembering what you thought was your death and now wondering if this wasn’t some damned dream of the black cells, only to be confronted with happy memories of building snow soldiers with Robb the other day, and pushing snow on top of guardsmen was. The experience had been hard to reconcile to say the least._

_“You want to be called Aemon Dragonknight again?” snorted the boy Robb, which temporarily drew me out of my bewilderment._

_“Winterfell…” I’d whispered dumbly, surprised to see the small room which served as Jon’s chambers._

_“What would Father think to hear that?” laughed Robb as he poked me in the side rather hard-like._

_“Ow!” which had brought Jon more to the front then as the young boy Jon had been took control._

_It wasn’t later until we were standing in line waiting for Father that my memories began to meld together on the edges, almost as though Jon and I were less two separate people and instead increasingly becoming one mind. Robb had been chatting away at me, eagerly talking about what we were going to show Father when he came home when a shadow fell across us both. A tall shadow that I had had to look up to see its owner._

_I’d looked up to Cat then, half expecting a smile, only to find a frown as she said curtly, “No, you go to the back.”_

_I had known that Jon and Cat were both ill-treated by my decisions and lies, but it was one thing to know that, and another to feel it. And then a whirl of emotions and memories of slights and stern reprimands were shared and I felt it too. The confusion at not knowing what I’d done to deserve such treatment melding over the years into bitter acceptance that because she wasn’t MY mother, that she hated me. The constant reminder that I was as much a burden as I was a son. The little ways that Lady Stark had instilled in Robb to remind me of my place without him thinking anything wrong with it. I stopped the sharing of memories though when I began to think of a lonely tower in Dorne. No. No one must know of that, not even Jon… not yet. Not until Father is ready._

_“I said to go to the back,” repeated Lady Stark, which she became from that moment on to me. I heeded her words, reeling as I did. Father then appeared—or I did. To have the ability to see one’s self from another person’s eyes is both a blessing and a curse. You at once understand so much more of yourself, and yet feel so powerless to do anything to alter any of it. Father gave my hair a tussle when he received me, and despite myself, I’d felt the need to touch him both as Jon and me to be sure that he was Father—me and I wasn’t dreaming._

_“What’s this? You missed me that much, Jon?” he asked._

_All I could do as I smelt him… smelt father—the soiled travel clothes stiff from the cold and sweat—was nod and hold him tighter._

 

“Jon?” asked Jeyne, and once again I was back in the hold of the ship.

 

“Aye?” I managed to respond with a voice that sounded scratchy from disuse.

 

“Where are we headed?” she asked, having sat next to me and rested her head on my shoulder in a manner so familiar that I nearly wondered why she did so.

 

Eventually I answered, “Dragonstone… Father, Father trusts Stannis. He has a letter he wants me to deliver.”

 

“And then to White Harbor and home?” asked Jeyne. I nodded at the girl, who smiled in return, moved even closer to myself and closed her eyes. It was only then watching as Jeyne fell asleep so easily that I began to feel how tired I was myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the following prompt:
> 
> WI after Ned Stark was executed, he woke up as Jon Snow just after the Northern army returned to Winterfell after the Greyjoy Rebellion?
> 
> I developed a complete alternate time line for ACOK with that prompt (and if I continue this drabble beyond this, that's where this would go). This is just a taster of what that kind of story would be like to write. I felt rather compelled to work on it today, and so it came.


	13. King Aegon VI, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of Queen Regent Rhaella's death reaches Ser Brynden Tully in the Vale, who has Baelor Hasty, Rhaella's youngest son, as a squire.

**King Aegon VI, Part Two**

**BRYNDEN**

He was in the midst of breaking his fast with his men when the stodgy Byram, Maester of the Gate, delivered a raven with the black wax seal of the Targaryens upon it. Baelor Hasty, his lanky comely and young squire of five and ten, noticed the wax seal and met his eyes eagerly awaiting his opening the letter. Just for that, Brynden thanked the robust Byram and shoved the letter under his plate and continued eating his biscuits and gravy, eyeing is cocksure squire bemusedly as the young man scowled. Baelor was tall, especially for one with Targaryen heritage—clearly it was his father’s height that Baelor had inherited. His hair was light honey brown with a silver-gold streak in the front that he parted to frame his face. His eyes though were all Targaryen, a beautiful shade of amethyst, just like the Queen’s, that entranced any who stared too long at his face. A talent which Baelor had abused far too often before meeting Brynden, that Baelor had thrown a fit when he’d discovered that Brynden was immune to such glances. The young man had been sent to Brynden’s care nigh five namedays past, mostly to get him out of the capital it had been told, with Jon Arryn’s suggestion of Brynden and a squiring at the Gates of the Moon battling Mountain Clans designed to “straighten the boy out” or so it’d been said. Brynden however wasn’t blind to the code his sworn lord had used. He knew from the start when Baelor would disappear with shy quiet boy squires that he managed to accumulate what went on. Many a soldier was familiar with certain brothers at arms having such desires. Most had the decency to be a bit more discrete about them, and Baelor learned that discretion after the first boy that Baelor had snuck away with came running back confused and scared about what he’d done with Baelor. Straightening out Baelor of that, Brynden saw little use to trying, but he did hammer into the lad the idea that he couldn’t be so open about it.

“Why?” Baelor had asked that first time, like a younger babe might’ve asked.

“Because, your mother won’t be the Queen Regent for forever,” answered Brynden.

“But then Egg will be King, and he won’t mind at all,” retorted Baelor with a mischievous grin and a confident air more than he deserved to have. It was then, Brynden knew exactly why he’d been sent Baelor Hasty—it was a gambit to save the young King, not this boy. This boy was to be forgotten about until that day arrived when the Queen Regent was dead and the Boy King would summon his most “dear friend and companion” back to the capital.

Brynden wiped his mouth with a napkin and then stood up from his seat at the head of the table in the small hall the Bloody Gate boasted—at the other end was the kitchen with the cook already slaving away at the midday meal.

Brynden took the letter out from under his plate and lightly tapped it unconsciously against his opposite hand as he spoke. “We have training to commence, men, to the yards. Those of you for patrol duty, see you after the midday meal.”

His dismissal was acknowledged with a general grunt and a few ayes from various Vale Knights and their assorted squires—most too tired to do much than finish their gravy and biscuits. Brynden though, was never one to linger at a dinner table—too often when he did, Hoster had found some excuse to bring over some lord’s daughter with the aim of marrying him off. And so. Brynden had learned as a young man the virtues of rising early from table and setting about what business he’d like, more than slowly dragging out a meal that was indigestible at best.

Baelor for once did not linger to amuse the rest of the men with a witticism as he was prone to do, but instead followed Brynden as he knew he would. Brynden hurried his pace as he exited the Hall and began to cross the small yard they had to reach the practice yard which sat between the Barracks and the Hall and Kitchen.

“Ser Brynden!” called out Baelor as Brynden pretended not to have heard Baelor as he met with the only lady at the Bloody Gate, Reylene Redfort. She was the elder sister to the current Lord Redfort, and had sworn off marriage for reasons that Brynden suspected had more in common with Baelor than naught—though with her being the only woman at the Bloody Gate, proof of this was rather hard to come by to be certain.

Reylene was practicing with her long sword against the dummy. She did not eat with the men, preferring to eat early from the Kitchen directly, rather than share more meals than was necessary with her fellow companions at the Bloody Gate. She was too tall for a woman, rather plain of face with freckles all across it. Her frizzy orange hair additionally did not help with the wooing of the men, though many a drunken Vale Knight had tried, only to find her fist knocking the wind out of him. The lady knew how to defend herself that much Brynden would give her, and for that he could respect her.

“We’ll soon need a new strawman at the rate you’re going at him,” he clucked with his tongue. Reylene ignored him as she sent a blow swift and strong against the midsection of the dummy.

“Ser Brynden!” called Baelor.

“Ahh, Baelor, you’re just in time to give Reylene something else to swing her sword at,” said Brynden as though he hadn’t heard his squire calling his name all across the yard.

Baelor stopped for a moment and looked at Reylene and then back to Brynden. He visibly gulped and said, “I can give the lady a fair match, Ser—but I was curious about the letter you received this morn.”

Brynden held up the letter almost absent-mindedly, “Oh this? I plan to read it anon. In the meanwhile don your gear and prepare to meet Lady Reylene here.”

Baelor looked between the two of them again and then nodded his head and hurried into the barracks. Brynden held his composure as the lad hurried off and then shared a look with Reylene as she leaned her longsword against the fence of the yard.

“You want me to go easy on him?” asked Reylene.

“Nah, the boy needs a knocking down a peg or two once again,” said Brynden after thinking about it for a few moments.

“There are other ways of achieving that,” grumbled Reylene.

Brynden broke the wax seal and said, “More dangerous ways… I’d humble the boy, but not see him seriously in danger.”

Reylene snorted, “Your scowls and feigned indifference may convince him, but admit it, you like the boy.”

Brynden sighed, “He drives me absolutely crazy. He’s obstinate, skilled, confident, determined, and with too high of an opinion of himself. And you want to know the worst of it? He reminds me of me at his age.”

Brynden then unfolded the letter so he could read it.

Reylene continued as he began to read. “Then the solution is simple, humble him the way you were, Ser.”

“That’s the thing, I never could be…” his words trailed off as he began to take in the letter.

“Is something the matter?” asked Reylene after he had been silent for more than a few long moments. Moments filled with thoughts of the Queen Dowager laying still on her deathbed, melding with images of his own mother doing the same when he was a young boy. He was not brought out of this stupor of memory until Reylene shook his arm.

He took another few moments to compose himself, “It’s just a slight chill of the wind. The truth behind the Starks’ words is coming to the Vale, it would seem.” He folded the letter back up and stuck it in a pocket of his cloak which he pulled a bit tighter around his body.

“Are you feeling well, Ser?” asked Reylene concernedly.

Brynden grew serious, though still sounding somewhat distant from the scene—even to himself. “Oh aye… but Baelor won’t when he reads this… I’m afraid your sparring will have to be delayed for a bit, as this is news that cannot wait.”

Reylene nodded to show she understood, and Brynden hurried into the Barracks to tell Baelor the news. He found the boy in the midst of tying a new shirt he’d changed into for the practice yard.

“Ser,” said Baelor, acknowledging his arrival.

He began calmly, “Sit down, Baelor. I have some news as you know, from the capital… unhappy news.”

Baelor complied sitting at the end of his cot—a luxury most men on duty elsewhere would love to have, but the Knights of the Bloody Gate had had since Braavos and Gulltown had come in close trading alliance, flooding wealth into the Vale.

“I don’t’ know how else to put this to you, boy, other than to come right out and say it, but your mother is dead,” stated Brynden solemnly.

Baelor sat there and blinked a few times before turning to look up and ask, “Is that all?”

“Is that all?” he echoed in surprise.

“I mean, did Egg not wish to see me return to the capital?” the boy asked, completely unfazed by the announcement of his own mother’s death.

“The King did request that—” began Brynden, but he stopped the moment he saw a smug grin appear upon the boy’s face.

“What did I say, Ser Brynden all those namedays ago when you attempted to reprimand me?” began Baelor.

“I’m afraid you misheard me. Your mother is dead,” emphasized Brynden.

Baelor snorted and answered, “I heard you Ser Brynden, and I do not care. She loved running the Kingdom far more than she loved me. I kept getting in the way of her ruling so she shipped me off to you, but I knew one day that Egg would send for me, and I was right, wasn’t I Ser Brynden?”

Brynden blinked, unable to respond

“Wasn’t I Ser?” repeated

“The King may have requested an old friend’s return, but he will not be prepared to meet the boy you’ve become.”

Baelor scoffed and stood, “If that is supposed to shame me into the mummery of grief for an old hag who happened to squeeze me out from betwixt her legs, or to not rejoice at the prospect of returning to Egg, my Egg, then you were never the Knight for whom I should have squired.”

Brynden had been wrong about Baelor… he wasn’t as bad as he had been himself. Baelor was worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came to me much easier than the current Trystane in Meereen chapter has been.


	14. King Aegon VI, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elia Martell Targaryen Rosby receives word of the Queen Regent's death and begins to plan her return to the court.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my muse struck again on this drabble. Here's another short little development of this story.

** King Aegon VI, Part Three  
**

  
  
**ELIA**  
  
  
Elia Martell Targaryen Rosby breathed a sigh of relief that at long last the woman who had taken her children from her was dead. She thanked the Stranger for answering her prayers of many years, and looked forward to taking the place in her son’s life that Rhaella had so cruelly usurped from her.  
  
  
  
She exited her private chapel only to be greeted by her key to holding power in Rosby, young Rymun, her son and third child, a boy of two and ten namedays. The maesters had chattered after Aegon’s difficult birth of how she could die if she conceived again, but Rymun had been an easy birth in comparison to Rhaenys and Aegon, and he had secured Gyles’ affection and his men would be loyal to her through her son being Gyles’. At the time of his conception, she had closed her eyes and thought of strangling Rhaella all while Gyles had gone about his business of consummating the marriage, to which Rymun had been the result. With no further need of childbearing and Gyles amazement at the gift of the long abandoned hope of an heir of his own body that she’d delivered, and the Maesters all confused and arguing with one another at how easy the birth had been, Elia simply attributed it to her turn to her further devotion to the Seven. Rhaella and her blasted deal had damned her, but the Stranger, the Mother, and the Father had watched over and preserved her far better than she had imagined.   
  
  
  
The Royalist defeat at the Trident and announcement of Rhaegar’s death had been fresh news when Rhaella had made her move. Aerys had shouted that the Queen was to take to Dragonstone and another man had been burned. The King visited the Queen's bedchambers and then returned to his own not long thereafter. Aerys had been “found dead” the next morning to be sure, but Elia knew the knowing look of worry that had melted into relief upon the Queen when the news had been brought to her. She instantly had taken Elia into her confidence then, when she had mistakenly trusted her goodmother, and said that she would ensure that Aegon would be King. And at that time that had been all that Elia had wanted—the fool she’d been.  
  
  
  
In exchange for Aegon being King, Rhaella had taken upon herself to negotiate with the Rebel lords and come to an agreement which they all found equally satisfying and unsatisfying in its terms. Elia’s lot had been to see her son accepted as King of the Seven Kingdoms, but she would not be his Regent as Rhaella—backed by Jon Arryn and a newly minted coalition of the Rebel and Royalist lords—all agreed that since she’d brought the rebellion to an end amicably without blood, that it was only right that she restore the good name of House Targaryen in her grandson's name--provided she take their guidance in ruling the Seven Kingdoms with a Regency Council which would co-rule with the Queen Regent. She, a murderess!   
  
  
  
Elia had confronted her about Aerys’ sudden illness and death right then—only to find in response that no one cared or believed her. Further Rhaenys was taken from her, promised to Lord Robert to be his bride in payment for what Rhaegar had taken in the form of the Stark whore. The whore's whelp was further to be raised in court alongside his half-brother--a matter she had protested against vigorously alongside Lord Stark, to no avail as the three Kingsguard who'd returned the Whore's whelp insisted he be treated as well as their new King. The last betrayal came when Elia herself was told that she could expect no seat upon the council--though that had been expected as by that time she'd fought every measure Rhaella had instituted to no avail that it was unsurprising Rhaella did not wish her presence on the Regency Council.   
  
  
  
Even Oberyn, her beloved brother and a council member representing their brother betrayed her in the end. He had said that she should simply content herself to her son’s rise to the throne and wait until his majority to press her influence in court if she were so eager for power. Elia however could not accept these terms. She needed power now. She needed it to secure her son's safety and her own future, to not be yet another forgotten Princess locked away in the bloody Maidenvault. She would not end her days useless and unable to defend her son from those who might harm him--like the whore's whelp. And so she’d married Lord Rosby, taking a gamble that his riches from trade and tariffs and the men would secure her power, and that she might have the constitution to produce a son where the Maesters said it was impossible. Her gamble had paid off, but at a cost. Any woman who remarried must give up her children to their nearest relatives other than their mother. It was Westerosi law, a horrible law that wouldn’t exist in Dorne, but she was playing the Game of Thrones for the Westerosi prize of the Iron Throne, and so, she swallowed her pride and forced herself through the marriage. Besides, her children had already been taken from her then, this merely formalized what had already been enacted in practice. And so she’d moved to Rosby and settled into a tranquil and quiet life with Gyles, her second husband and father to her second son.  
  
  
  
“Mother! I’m doing better at quintains. Come and see!” her son shouted, pulling at her hand.  
  
  
  
“Of course my son, my darling son,” assured Elia with a sunny smile which Rymun easily returned. Rymun was named for his godfather—Rymun Darry, whom Gyles had been angling to arrange a betrothal to Rymun’s daughter with as a way of keeping the Buckwells in check from thinking about moving in on Rosby lands should another rebellion break out in the near future. Such angling had made sense when Rymun was an infant in arms and the certainty of the Regency Council and the Queen Regent had been untested. But with the Greyjoy Rebellion having been successfully put down by lords Stark, Lannister, the war eager Baratheon, and Tully under the command of Ser Barristan Selmy, any thought of imminent warfare had been put aside.  
  
  
  
Lord Greyjoy’s islands had been humbled, his son and heir Rodrik had been killed in the fighting at Seaguard, his brother Euron banished, his brother Aeron had been captured off Fair Island and sent to the Reach to serve as a prisoner. Lord Greyjoy’s hold on the isle of Pyke was diminished to simply the castle of Pyke and its immediately surrounding lands. His sworn lords who had followed him into rebellion had all either chose the black or the axe. They had been replaced with more “loyal” men to Aegon—mostly to the second sons of Riverlords, Northmen, Westernmen, or rebellious thrawls or sons who’d switched sides at the end—his goodbrother, Lord Rodrik Harlaw the foremost of those turncoats. Lord Greyjoy’s sons Maron and Theon were taken hostage, and his daughter Asha betrothed to Lord Tully’s son and raised at Riverrun. Maron had been given to Lord Tywin and Theon to Lord Eddard to each to raise to be more amenable to the “Greenlander” ways as Balon had called them, and should they prove ineffective and need to be killed, the troublesome islands would be given over to Lord Tully’s branch of the family through Asha, leaving the problem of the Iron Islands to be the issue of the Riverlands moving forward should Lords Tywin or Eddard fail to raise either son responsibly. That was likely one bone of contention that could spark into some small rebellion, but that would be small and localized to the islands and western shore, and nothing that need be worried about this far east. No, that would not destabilize the Crownlands, of that she could be sure.  
  
  
  
As such, mayhaps the potential betrothal to Lord Darry’s daughter may not be the wisest choice. Perhaps Lord Mooton's daughter instead? Aye, that would be threat enough against the whore's welp. Elia exited to the courtyard and saw as Rymun hurriedly dressed himself to mount his horse once again. Elia looked at her youngest son, he was tall for his age and lanky like Oberyn had been when he’d been that age, Elia thought, though he was unlike Oberyn in every other imaginable way. He had her olive complexion, but a fine mane of reddish brown hair—apparently something that Gyles had had in his youth and was proof enough that Rymun was certainly his son, not that that had been in any doubt. His eyes though were something that neither Gyles nor Elia could attribute to any living family member of their recollection, being an eerie sea-green in color. His face likewise was of a long oval shape with a finely shaped Valyrian brow and nose neither could recognize from either of their relations or themselves, and yet it seemed so familiar to them both as well at the same time. According to Gyles, Rymun in personality reminded him of his long dead little brother, Wylcott, who had died as a child of the pox. So Rymun was a mixture of them both and more than neither could ever expect.  
  
  
  
It was then Elia noticed which horse Rymun was mounting, the dark midnight black stallion that his father had just recently had broken in as a nameday present for Rymun. He had said the stallion was a bit too rough for Rymun to ride just yet, but within a few months of further training, he’d be fine.  
  
  
  
“Rymun, do you think you should be riding that horse?” asked Elia pointedly.  
  
  
  
“He’s mine, isn’t he?” protested Rymun in the first display of defiance that he’d ever had.  
  
  
  
“Aye, but he’s a bit too wild, come down—” began Elia but he was off charging for the quintain without stopping to hear her finish.  
  
  
  
All right, mayhaps there was a little more of Oberyn in him than just the lankiness, Elia conceded to herself. Rymun hit the quintain straight on and the horse ran quick enough that Rymun missed the counter attack of the swinging dummy on a swivel, and pulled his horse around to return—though the stallion jerked his head in defiance for a moment before obeying.  
  
  
  
“Very good, Rymun, now let’s go in. It’s nearly time for your lesson with the maester,” clucked Elia. He’d need those lessons a bit more now. He was brother to the King, after all, and not making a fool of himself in front of the court would be paramount.  
  
  
  
“Once more, mother, that one didn’t go as well as before!” protested Rymun.  
  
  
  
“I can’t imagine it going any differently than—” but he had already departed for the quintain. Elia held her breath as once again he proved he could hold his seat rather well.  
  
  
  
This time, Elia tried a different tactic.  
  
  
  
“Well done, my son. Mayhaps it is time to begin your practice on the rings.”  
  
  
  
“Really?” he asked excitedly. Practicing with the rings had been something he’d been denied thus far as too young for.  
  
  
  
“Oh yes, but first one must educate the mind,” she transitioned rather quickly. To which Rymun frowned.  
  
  
  
“Come now, you don’t wish to upset your brother, the King.”  
  
  
  
“Half-brother,” corrected Rymun automatically.  
  
  
  
“That’s half better than everyone else at court,” countered Elia.  
  
  
  
“Mayhaps,” grumbled Rymun.  
  
  
  
Elia grabbed the stallion by the bridle and began to rub its head to calm it down and keep it from continuing to buck its head. All the while she kept her gaze on her doubting son and said, “You’ll see, Aegon shall love you like any brother should.”  
  
  
  
Rymun smiled, but Elia was certain it was only to please her, and nothing else, but he would see, of that she was certain.


	15. King Aegon VI, Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhaenys is giving birth at Storm's End when news reaches her of her grandmother's passing.

**King Aegon VI, Part Four**

 

 

**RHAENYS**

 

 

The pain was unbearable, but at least it wasn’t as searing as the last time she had given birth. Rhaenys gripped the sides of the birthing chair with all her might, hoping that doing so might hurry the process along this time.

 

  
Rhaenys was confined with her second child in Storm’s End and would be unable to attend the funeral of her dearly beloved grandmother—something she’d regret and blame her second son for, for the rest of his life. In her stead, her husband, Robert rode to attend, bringing with them their son, Oryn who was only three namedays old and just learning to ride a pony.

 

 

Well, he rode out as well as Robert could ride with one arm. His lack of an arm was something Rhaenys both looked on fondly and cursed for her fate. At the Trident the fight with her father had ended with Rhaegar’s sword through Robert’s hammer arm as it made contact with her father's chest. The sword had been taken from Robert's arm and he was patched up while losing a lot of blood. And Jon Arryn's own maester not been on hand, it's likely Robert might have bled to death from his wound. Soon though the wound grew infected and had left the “Stag Lord” on the edge of death for nigh a moon at the very least—or so Robert was keen to remind her of when he was in his cups which was often. Rhaenys’ mother had said it had been a reminder from the gods for the Baratheons to “know their place” by reminding them of Orys One-Hand and his loyalty to the Targaryen dynasty. Rhaenys simply considered it a random happenstance of battle that might not have happened had Robert’s squire secured his armor on his arms more tightly that a gap hadn’t appeared at just the right moment, or had her father's sword missed its mark. Many odd things were the result of such circumstances that she was not quick to attribute to gods who'd never answered any of her prayers, nor was inclined to believe existed--though she told no one those thoughts.

 

 

Rumors had flown then that though her father had died, that Lord Robert had died as well. Rumors that had reached Storm’s End and ended with Mace Tyrell making a rather poor attempt at a take of the castle that had ended with Stannis severely wounded by an arrow to his upper chest and knocked unconscious when he’d subsequently fell from the battlements—eventually succumbing to his own wounds as the siege continued on all around. Young Renly had surrendered the castle at the urging of Maester Cressan. It had only been when Mace Tyrell had set himself up in the castle’s solar did the word of Robert’s recovery, though loss of his sword arm, as well as that of her grandfather’s death reach the Tyrell lord.

 

 

All would have devolved into chaos then, had her grandmother not acted quickly and negotiated when she had. That was one thing Rhaenys was sure of. Robert may have killed her father, mayhaps her father might have deserved death for how he’d treated her mother, mayhaps he might have truly loved her half-brother Aemon's mother, but her grandmother had forged peace for the realm, a peace whose cost had been this birthing bed. In her early years she had thought that since she was being brought up with Renly at Storm's End that Robert may pass on his insisted marriage in favor a bachelor’s end and wed her to his young brother instead. Renly oft reminded Robert of himself when he was that age as he had been want to say rather proudly, and Renly had lapped up all of Robert’s praise and attention eagerly. Robert had poured every ounce he had in him to learn to fight with his other arm and training Renly then, keeping him in a shape most wives would be proud to see their husbands in.

 

 

Renly had been Rhaenys’ companion and confidant throughout her childhood, and she had loved him dearly for being the only person in the castle who actually looked at her and not around her when she entered a room, or worse ignored her like Robert had been fond of doing until they'd shared a bed together. Though Renly was a tad boastful, he had a kind heart, and that had made her hope that rather than marry a man eight and ten namedays her elder, she would end up with Renly, and Robert would end his days a bachelor content at passing the lordship to Renly when he drank himself to death. Once, when she had been two and ten, he’d even said as much—though he had been in his cups at the time. But all of these hopes came for naught when one evening Renly had been caught in the barracks with a young squire doing things that young boys shouldn’t be doing together. That the squire had been Lord Tyrell's youngest son had only added to the insult. After that, Renly had lost favor with Robert, and Rhaenys’ hopes of avoiding an unequal marriage in age had vanished.

 

 

The midwife’s shouts brought Rhaenys back to the present, “It’s coming out, my lady! It’s coming out! Push!”

 

 

“Curse you, woman! Can’t you see that I—I’m… agggh!” snapped Rhaenys at the midwife before another urge came on.

 

 

At this moment Rhaenys did not know whether to thank or curse her grandmother for this cost she paid. Curse more likely as she was apt to do most often, though Oryn… sweet quiet Oryn made her regret those curses. He was unlike his father, though he were the spitting image of him. Oryn was bashful, shy, kind, and very loving. It was in Oryn that Robert too became a different man than the drunken ogre who sometimes plagued her bed with its presence. He brought out a good natured side of Robert she had not seen since before Renly had humiliated himself. Oryn even showed an intelligence that was rare for a boy his age as he’d already begun to learn his letters and read words. Sometimes when she would have him on her lap as she went over the household accounts, he’d pick out a word here or there, surprising Rhaenys just how intelligent he was for a boy of three namedays. Robert, when he learned of this, did not seem to mind Oryn’s temperament, in fact he seemed to find a certain quiet solace in it asking his son to try and read to him. And that, that had made Rhaenys’ cold heart towards her husband melt a little, only a tiny bit mind you, but Oryn brought out the best in them both, and at least made the marriage more bearable than it otherwise was.

 

 

“It’s a boy!” shouted the midwife with a smile as if the babe were her own.

 

 

Thank the gods that would mean she’d not have to endure this agony again as far as she was concerned. She’d promised Robert an heir and a spare—no more than that if she could help it. She heard her new son wail as Rhaenys felt another urge to push—and just as she expected the after birth to follow her son out into the world, another sharp pain hit Rhaenys.

 

 

“My lady… there’s another babe,” said the midwife.

 

 

“Twins?!” cried Rhaenys. It wasn’t completely uncommon in the Targaryen family tree, though of course it had been a long while since the last pair had been born.

 

 

This birth though, likely prepared by the larger boy, was much easier and quicker, though still as painful.

 

 

The midwife then announced when the twin at long last had come out, “A girl, my lady. A boy and a girl.”

 

 

A boy and a girl. Well, Robert certainly could not say she was not a wife who slacked on her duty to her husband. It was then the afterbirths came sliding out and Rhaenys was cleaned as her babes were washed. It was only after she’d been cleaned and helped back to the bed that she was given her children to hold. The boy was big and Baratheon built, though he had her Salty Dornish complexion. He’d likely be bigger than Oryn would end up being one day. Her daughter was small where her twin was big, pale where her brother was dark, and lilac of eye where her brother was a bright greenish-blue.

 

 

“Lilac eyes?” asked Rhaenys almost dully.

 

 

“And silver-gold hair,” said the midwife cautiously, as though she were unsure how Rhaenys would react. Indeed, her daughter had a tuft of silver-gold hair upon her head, while her son had the usual Baratheon black.

 

 

“My daughter shall be named Rhaella, in honor of my grandmother,” stated Rhaenys boldy.

 

 

“And the boy?” asked the midwife with a nod.

 

 

Rhaenys turned to her son, her second son, her overly large boy who’d insisted on taking his sweet time in coming out and striking at the precise moment he had. Surely he could have come sooner and then she might have recovered in time to travel to her grandmother’s funeral. The more she held this son of hers, the more she hated him. Had he been as easy as his sister, had he not cried so insistently as she held him there and then, she might have at least tolerated him. Not even his Dornish skin could move her to like him, and so she came to her decision.

 

 

“Let Robert name him, for I shall not,” stated Rhaenys defiantly as she turned her attentions back to her beloved daughter, for whom she would cherish more than anything, dooming the boy to go without a name until Robert and Oryn returned. And even then, Robert had seemed uninterested in giving his second son a name and it had been left to Oryn who took to his little brother immediately and donned him Harbold. In the future, Harbold would oft look to and depend upon his brother where he could not from either of his parents.


	16. Ned's Family Reunion Part Five

**BRANDON**

 

“Lyanna! Put your skull down!” snapped father. Ned had brought them down to the crypts to speak with them. The why was obvious, at least to Brandon, as the statues to himself, Lyanna, and father were rather blatant in what they said of how things stood in 298. But of course, Lya had to take things a step further than that, just like always.

 

“What? Didn’t you ever wonder what you looked like without your flesh, father?” challenged Lyanna boldly.

 

“It’s disrespectful,” countered father as he came, took her skull from her hands and put it back into the stone sepulcher that contained the rest of her bones and nothing else.

 

“I hardly think I can disrespect myself. In fact I know I can’t,” stated Lyanna boldly.

 

Brandon couldn’t help but snigger at that.

 

She then turned to him and urged, “Come on, Bran, let’s see what you look like!”

 

“Stop calling me Bran, Lya. You know I hate that name,” growled Brandon as he placed his body between Lyanna and his stone sepulcher that sat in the wall for him.

 

“Do you now? Why?” she questioned.

 

“‘Tis the name of a child, and I am no boy.”

 

“You complained about that all through the Tourney of Harrenhal, too,” said the otherwise silent Ned. He had simply allowed them full reign of this part of the crypt without any commentary, no doubt relying on the statues to say what he could not bring himself to say—that he was the top wolf now, the Alpha of the pack. Brandon knew how these things were done, Lord Dustin had instructed him as such, and cousin Benjen had as well.

 

“How was that Tourney, Ned? Did Ben go?” questioned Lyanna, completely forgetting about digging through the rest of their sepulchers. Well, Brandon had to give this to old Ned, he knew how to manage their sister.

 

Ned nodded and confirmed, “Aye, Ben went.”

 

“And I won the tourney, I imagine,” boasted Brandon with an assured smile.

 

“No, you lost on your first attempt against a newly knighted boy. You got so angry you said that tourneys were Southron fancies,” said Ned dryly. Brandon waited for a smirk to appear on old Ned’s lips but was disappointed when it didn’t come.

 

Lyanna meanwhile had burst out laughing, to which Brandon pursed his lips and snorted.

 

“You’re lying, I won, and you’re just too embarrassed by your poor performance to say I did,” countered Brandon, knowing it wasn’t true the moment he’d accused Ned of it, but that mattered little compared to his wounded pride for the nonce.

 

Ned approached Brandon then, and met him straight in the eye and said rather dourly, “I have only ever told one lie in my life brother, and that wasn’t it.”

 

“Boys, calm down,” said Father.

 

“I am a man, Father,” stated Brandon firmly, though his father looked at him not. Instead Father locked gazes with Ned, who to his merit did not back down from Father’s glare, which made Brandon even more jealous than he had been a moment ago.

 

“Only a boy need remind me of that,” Father retorted grimly.

 

Brandon was hurt by that implication and narrowed his eyes and scowled to show his displeasure. How was he not a man? He’d fucked as many women from here to Barrowton as could likely be fucked without calling it rape. Barbrey had said he was the finest _man_ she’d ever seen—a stallion among men was the term she’d used when his sword was bloody from her. He had learned to fight and joust—even if certain siblings of his lied about his clearly superior abilities. He was grown in about every possible way one could imagine. And if father just didn’t want to see it, well, he was an old man anyway, with far too much grey in his beard.

 

“This is a distraction from why I brought you all down here,” said Ned, breaking Brandon from his incessant thoughts.

 

“And why did you?” rounded Father immediately.

 

“It concerns Jon.”

 

“You mean your supposed bastard?” asked Lyanna as she closed her own sepulcher, seemingly disappointed there were no real surprises within it beyond her bones.

 

“He’s my son isn’t he?” Brandon asked, with a knowing look. Aye he’d fucked enough women to have a son, Brandon actually rather liked the idea of having a boy—even if he looked a lot like Ned.

 

“What makes you think that he isn’t my blood?” asked Ned.

 

“I think what Lyanna and Brandon are hinting at is that the idea of you having a bastard seems rather unlike you, Ned, and I must admit that I rather agree with them, though why you would pretend he were yours when he isn’t, I cannot fully explain either.”

 

Ned was very careful in how he answered, saying, “Believe what you will, it does not change that I have dishonored myself and wronged my lady wife and Jon all the same.”

 

There was something that Ned wasn’t saying, which was odd of him. Had the Eyrie taught Ned how to lie? Well he did admit to knowing how to lie now.

 

“You mean _my_ former betrothed?” Brandon asked to be sure he understood everything.

 

“Who is now my wife,” answered Ned firmly.

 

Brandon approached his older younger brother and gave him a punch to his face for Catelyn’s sake. It was the least he could do on Catelyn’s behalf, Brandon told himself, and had nothing to do with Ned or Father not recognizing how grown he was whatsoever.

 

“Brandon!” shouted father. Lyanna swooped in to Ned’s side, immediately asking if he were all right.

 

He had the decency to admit, “I deserved that.”

 

“And I have another for your boy’s sake all ready,” challenged Brandon. That would assure Ned knew his place once again, surely. He may be older now, but Brandon would always be the eldest. _Always_.

 

“Don’t you dare!” protested Lyanna, turning quickly to glare at Brandon. After a brief exchange of their eyes, Brandon relented by crossing his arms. He’d made his point after all.

 

“I don’t need your protection, Lya,” protested Ned, who was returned the favor in the form of a slap from Lyanna herself. Father said nothing as Ned took the abuse, which Brandon thought was interesting way of showing his approval, but not atypical.

 

“That was for your son’s sake. What were you thinking raising him here in Winterfell? That was cruel of you! To grow up knowing what kind of life he might have were he not born a bastard, but always to be reminded of it, every day. It was _very_ cruel of you, Ned. I didn’t think you could be so cold!”

 

“There was no other way,” said Ned, wincing as he spoke and avoiding Lya’s eyes.

 

“There are always other options,” countered Father, who had remained silent since Lyanna’s own outburst.

 

“Couldn’t his mother have raised him?” Brandon asked.

 

Ned looked away from them as he admitted, “His mother is dead.”

 

_Oh…_

 

“And her family?” questioned Father, clearly thinking Jon’s mother were some noble girl, which made sense why Ned would want to raise his son.

 

“Dead as well,” said Ned, with an emotional break in his voice. That had the unwanted effect of making Brandon wonder if Ned truly cared for Jon’s mother, whoever she was, and that was the reason he had raised Jon at Winterfell. Aye, that would make some amount of sense, but that would be a further wrong to Catelyn all the same. In any case he’d deserved the punch.

 

“Then you could have sent him off to some bannermen to raise for you,” Father rattled off.

 

Ned shifted uncomfortably. “Howland had offered… but I told him no.”

 

“Howland?” questioned Brandon, confused by who he meant.

 

“Lord Reed’s son?” asked Father knowingly.

 

Ned continued, “Old Lord Reed died not long after you went south, Father, and Howland then became Lord Reed. He offered to take Jon for me, to raise him up in the obscurity of the Neck. But I said no.”

 

“Why didn’t you?” Brandon asked.

 

Ned finally stopped looking away and met their eyes. And for the first time in a long while, Brandon thought he saw his brother on the verge of crying. “Because you were all gone. All of you had gone off and gotten yourselves killed by your own stupidities. Benjen was leaving for the Night’s Watch, Catelyn had yet to arrive, and the castle was empty of family except for Jon.”

 

Father was clearly struggling to understand as he said, “It makes sense that you’d have kept him then, but surely after your wife arrived and you began to have other children, keeping Jon would have been seen as senseless to you.”

 

“You’d have me raise him as my son here in Winterfell and then when I had other children abandon him to whatever fate the Gods had for him? Mayhaps raising him in Winterfell was cruel, Lya, but tell me if that would not have been the crueler?” demanded Ned of Lyanna. Lya for her part looked between Ned and Father with an inability to have a ready quip to answer—a rare scene indeed. But there was something that was bothering Brandon.

 

“What do you mean killed by our own stupidities?” questioned Brandon, crossing his arms as he asked.

 

“You were stupid enough to shout ‘come out and die’ about the Crown Prince while in the capital,” stated Ned bluntly.

 

“If I said that, there must have been a good reason for it, at the time,” justified Brandon automatically.

 

Ned answered, “Aye, you thought that the Crown Prince had taken Lya hostage.”

 

Lyanna laughed at at that, “Me? You think I’d let any man take me?”

 

The silence from the rest of the family upset Lyanna instantly, and she pouted automatically.

 

Father questioned, “But why would the Prince be accused of taking Lyanna? Was she taken from the tourney?”

 

Ned answered that, “Lya thought that he might offer her freedom.”

 

“Freedom from what?” asked Father, his brow narrowing.

 

Ned remained silent. Father eyed Lya who had suddenly gone pale under his gaze.

 

Brandon prodded, “You can’t just say something like that and not tell us, Ned.”

 

Ned looked to Lya and then she seemed to widen her eyes in understanding.

 

“But… I would have gone straight to Essos given the chance!” she exclaimed at long last.

 

“The Prince locked you up in a tower in the Red Mountains instead, I found you… just as you were dying,” said Ned softly to their sister as he moved to hug her.

 

Lya however took a few steps back from older Ned’s grasp and demanded, “How?”

 

Ned sighed, and rested his arms down at his side, “A fever, which wouldn’t have killed you had you had access to a maester...”

 

“But since I’d ran away and was locked up, I died instead…” finished Lya without allowing him to finish, with Ned only nodding after she’d deduced it all.

 

“You said all of us died stupidly. What then, in my opinion was my stupidity? In your mind.” asked Father pointedly.

 

Ned’s cheeks flushed slightly before he said, “Yours was the worst fate of all. After Brandon had been arrested for threatening the Prince’s life, he called you down to answer for his treason. You showed up dressed in your armor, declaring your right to a trial by combat, which the Mad King allowed you. Only he named his champion to be fire and he burned you alive while you were in your armor, saying that all you had to do to win was not be burnt. All the while, Brandon had been brought in and tied to a rope by his neck laying a sword on the ground just out of his reach, saying that if he were able to take the sword and cut the rope, he… you could try saving father. You choked to death first.”

 

Father’s face was unmoving, as still as his statue. Lya turned from them all and looked away. Brandon could hear her crying, though she’d likely deny it if anyone confronted her about it now.

 

Brandon took a deep breath in order to calm himself before bursting out, “Tell me that bastard is dead, Ned. Tell me that you ran your sword across his neck.”

 

“I didn’t have the chance. Ser Jaime, Tywin Lannister’s son did it before me. He was made a Kingsguard to Aerys, and the treacherous knight stabbed him in the back and slit his throat for good measure,” said Ned with an obvious distaste.

 

“Good, sounds like the bastard deserved all that and more,” added Brandon while Ned looked at him as though he’d just declared the High Septon a greenseer.

 

Father spoke rather calmly, considering everything he’d just heard. “I can understand, Ned, from all that you’ve said of our deaths, why you might have wanted then to have kept Jon, but what shall become of him when he is grown? Have you put any thought into that?”

 

“That is not for me to decide, but Jon. If he wishes to go to the Wall, then so be it. If he wants to be a sellsword, then so be it. If he wishes for a small keep somewhere and to be his brother’s bannerman, then so be it. I’ve decided enough of what his life has been up until this point, let him choose how to spend the rest of it.”

  
Lya at that point, her eyes red and cheeks slightly swollen then turned around and hugged Ned and whispered something in his ear to which only Ned answered, “Aye.” Lya then kissed Ned’s cheek where she’d slapped him earlier.

 

“I’d agree, it’s not your place to decide, little brother. Especially since Father and I’ve returned, it would seem you’re not Lord of Winterfell anymore.”

 

“Brandon!” scolded Father.

 

“The Old Gods must approve of such an action, if they brought us back—clearly they’re upset with how Ned’s been running the North. I mean, there’s a sept in Winterfell now—an actual sept.”

 

“Catelyn needed some place of the castle to call her own.”

 

“Was that how you bought her loyalty after introducing Jon to her then? Accept my bastard son and here’s a sept for you to pray in?” Brandon mocked.

 

He wasn’t completely surprised when old Ned took a punch at him, what he was surprised was how hard it hurt. However unlike every other time they’d gone to blows as boys, Ned simply stood there afterwards.

 

Brandon taunted him, “Well, go on then, Neddy, hit me again if you’re such a man to your lady wife.”

 

“Father!” called a voice from further down the crypt, and Brandon turned to see Ned’s eldest by Catelyn appearing out of the shadows.

 

“What is it Robb?” asked Ned, his entire demeanor changing in front of the boy. Robb could only look between Brandon and Ned for the first few seconds before saying, “Grandmother wants to speak to you… about Jon.”

 

“Now you’ve done it…” muttered Father.


	17. Ned's Family Reunion Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While waiting for Ned to arrive, Lyarra and Catelyn make a surprising discovery about Rickon.

**CATELYN**

 

 

Ned’s mother had finished scarfing down her meal rather eagerly. Catelyn had sent the children out while she'd ate, which Lady Lyarra had protested most viscerally at being parted from Bran and Rickon, with Rickon choosing to remain with his grandmother and little uncle Rodrik on the bed rather than leave the room--stealing some of his grandmother's food with little complaints from his grandmother on the subject. Catelyn wondered at the attention Lyarra gave Rickon as she ate, and suddenly felt slightly embarrassed. Rickon was talking, not that he didn't talk ever, but he was energetically doing so as his grandmother chatted away with him. And they were talking about Shaggydog of all things. Catelyn had been busy as any Lady of Winterfell ought to be, managing a castle’s household staff was no easy task, planning meals, seeing to her daughters’ education, they all took up much of her time. She thought that she’d scheduled her time well enough to know her youngest son and his ways, but seeing him blossom under the attention of his grandmother, well, had opened up an entirely different side of Rickon and a different part of her heart pained at the accusation.

 

 

Rickon proudly declared, “He’s still just a pup, but he’s mine, and he’s big and black already.”

 

 

Lyarra declared, “Well, I think it’s just right that your father gave you all puppies from the most recent litter.”

 

 

“Shaggydog’s not a dog, he’s a wolf,” answered Rickon plainly.

 

 

“A wolf pup? Isn’t that a little dangerous?” asked Lyarra eyeing Catelyn, as though she were the cause of such danger.

 

 

“Robb and Jon found them in the woods,” explained Rickon.

 

 

“The bastard found them?” asked Lyarra warily.

 

 

“They were returning from seeing the execution of a Night’s Watch deserter when it happened. Robb and Jon apparently were racing when they came upon the pups nursing at their dead mother,” added Catelyn.

 

 

“How many pups were there?” asked Lyarra.

 

 

“Six, one for each of my children and another for the boy,” answered Catelyn, refraining from calling Jon the bastard. It wasn’t like she was defending her husband’s son. Not in the least, she just didn’t like the way that her goodmother brandished it about so commonly, repeatedly, and spitefully. Why she did so made Catelyn question herself. After all, Lyarra hadn’t been offended by the boy’s presence in Winterfell like she had, and she hadn’t had to bear the insult for years upon years. Besides, bandying about the term as she did would cause it to hold little meaning anymore.

 

 

Lyarra paled at that slightly, but nodded and then asked, “And how did the mother die? Was that determined?”

 

 

“A stag’s antler through the throat,” answered Catelyn. She then couldn’t stop herself the next moment before adding, “I should also mention that it’s a Baratheon who now sits on the Iron Throne.”

 

 

There, she’d finally said it. It had been bothering her ever since Ned had returned home with those pups. How he could not see that they were a sign from his gods, when she could see it as plain as day, Seven worshiping as she was, Catelyn knew not.

 

 

“Shaggy’s mad that his momma’s dead. He saw the stag and her fight,” said Rickon then, growing bored with his sleepy little Uncle. At this declaration, Lyarra's eyes went wide.

 

 

“And how did you come to know that, my little wolf pup?” asked Catelyn as she moved closer to the bed to scoop him up, but Rickon did not come to her waiting arms like he might have before. Instead he sat nestled next to his grandmother and looking rather… oddly at her.

 

 

Lyarra however looked at Rickon strangely before asking, “Tell me again Rickon, what color eyes does Shaggy have?” She then took Rickon’s chin and gave a closer look of Rickon’s own eyes. Rickon uncharacteristically let her do so without pulling his head away from her grasp as he often did when Old Nan or one of the other nursemaids tried to comb his hair.

 

 

“Green,” answered Rickon calmly. Lyarra once again paled at the answer before turning to Catelyn and asking, “Do you have a rider who can make it to Clan Flint?”

 

 

“House Slate is close by, we could send them a raven—“ began Catelyn, but she was hushed by Lyarra before she even had a chance to finish her thought.

 

 

She shook her head as she interrupted, “No, it must be a rider—the Flint won’t trust anyone from House Slate riding forth with a message.”

 

 

“I don’t recall House Slate and Clan Flint ever being on sour terms in all the histories of the North that I’ve studied,” commented Catelyn, and she had studied every one there had been from the day she’d learned she was to marry Brandon.

 

 

Lyarra sighed and said, “Clan Flint doesn’t trust your grey—maesters. Sending a raven would give the maesters every opportunity to read any message you send through them, and then they will report it to the Citadel.”

 

 

“You speak as though Maester Luwin weren’t to be trusted. He’s the entire reason you’re still alive, you know,” explained Catelyn.

 

 

“It is urgently important that I send word to Clan Flint!” insisted Lyarra, and then she added, "And the maesters mustn't know! They'll ruin everything!"

 

 

“About what?” questioned Catelyn, while ignoring the dig made against maesters, simply for Luwin's sake. “If it requires a rider, he’ll need a horse and provisions, and I’d like to know for what purpose you intend to use one of my husband’s men to ride out to meet with Clan Flint.”

 

 

Lyarra stared long and hard at Catelyn before shaking her head and falling back into her pillows, though she put her arm around Rickon rather protectively at that moment.

 

 

“No, goodmother, I would know what it is that has you so upset,” insisted Catelyn.

 

 

That unfortunately was when Arya chose the absolute wrong time to interrupt, dragging Jon in behind her. The boy had the good sense to appear abashed as he was drug into the room by Arya.

 

 

“See, he looks just like father!” insisted Arya rather pointedly.

 

 

“Arya! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, do knock before you enter a room whose door is closed!” scolded Catelyn mayhaps a little harshly.

 

 

Arya ignored her as she thrusted Jon forward for Lyarra to see before closing the door behind her and pressing herself against it—apparently to keep Jon from bolting out the door at the first opportunity, if Catelyn was any judge.

 

 

“Aye, that the bastard does,” stated Lyarra after a long held silence where she had stared at Jon for what seemed an eternity. Jon flinched at being called what he was, but did not back down from Lyarra in response. Rickon looked between everyone rather confused before sighing and settling in to once again not being the center of attention, it would seem.

 

 

Another long silence descended upon the room with Lyarra regarding Jon more before saying, “I regret the way you came into existence, but you are a grandson and there is nothing to be done about that, I suppose.”

 

 

Again Jon stood as still as his father would, his face almost a cold mask of ice.

 

 

“How well do you ride, bastard?” queried Lyarra.

 

 

“He has a name,” interrupted Arya.

 

 

“Arya,” warned Catelyn, but Lyarra waved her off.

 

 

Jon answered the question calmly, “I ride rather well.”

 

 

“Have you ever visited the mountain clans in the North?” asked Lyarra pointedly. It was then that Catelyn began to catch on to what Lyarra was aiming at, and she wondered if Ned would simply let it happen. After all, it was his mother making the arrangements.

 

 

Jon answered honestly. “With my father and Robb.”

 

“Then I have a task for you. A very important task, and an opportunity for you, if my uncle still lives that is.”

 

  
Jon's answer was simple, “He does, I met him… once.”

 

 

Lyarra’s smile broadened like a cat that had just caught a mouse. However yet again were they interrupted, this time by the door pushing against Arya.

 

 

“Mother? I brought father and uh… grandfather... can we come in?” asked Robb through a crack in the door.

 

 

“Arya, let your brother in,” ordered Catelyn, and Arya backed away from the door, still eyeing Lyarra as she did.

 

 

Robb entered the room followed closely by Ned and her goodfather. Rickard immediately sat on the edge of the bed next to his wife and moved to pick up Rodrik rather tenderly. Ned pulled Jon a few steps to the side to allow Rickard to pass and join his wife. Catelyn thought that his face might be a tad swollen and red for some reason. _He’s been fighting, but with who?_ Lyarra watched as Rickard picked up the sleeping Rodrik with a slight smile before turning her attention back to Jon. Robb came to Catelyn’s side upon entering, leaning down and whispering “Uncle Brandon’s sulking in the Godswood,” in her ear. He then grabbed Arya and pulled her over to playfully reprimand her about blocking doorways.

 

 

Brandon would have to be talked to, and Catelyn feared it would likely have to be her that would have to do so. She wasn’t looking forward to the task, after all, he looked almost as he had the day he’d rode off from Riverrun, confident he would bring his sister back for their wedding. Mayhaps a little more clean-shaved, but otherwise, he still had as handsome a face as he’d ever had. Some small part of her leapt at that thought, and then wondered how well she looked after five children and fifteen years of marriage. She shook her head, she was being a fool. Brandon had never really loved her, not like Ned did. If Brandon had, he would’ve married her first and then rode off to find Lyanna.

 

 

“Arya dragged you in here?” asked Ned quietly to Jon.

 

 

The careful mask that Jon had worn melted in the instant he was face to face with Ned as he searched for words to answer him, “Aye… but I… I wanted to come, truly.”

 

 

Seeing Ned, Rickard, Lyarra, Arya, and Jon altogether like they were made her heart jump into her throat in that instant. She looked up at Robb, the heir to the castle and marveled at how much he resembled a younger Edmure and took his hand and held it tightly. He would inherit the castle, aye. Her other children wouldn’t have any worry in the future from Jon. No. It wouldn’t happen.

 

 

“Mother, you’re squeezing my hand too tight,” complained Robb in that moment.

 

 

“Sorry,” apologized Catelyn as she let go to allow him to shake out his hand… it was getting rather large compared to the rest of his body. He’d likely soon have a growth spurt by his next nameday.

 

 

“I’m glad you’re here Ned. I was just about to send Jon off to see my uncle, Orell.”

 

 

“And why would he need to see him?” questioned Ned.

 

 

Lyarra was silent for an instant before asking, “Catelyn tells me that your sons discovered a dead wolf bitch and brought home its pups as pets for your children?”

 

 

“Direwolf,” corrected Robb, before blushing a deep shade of red as all eyes turned to him. He then continued “The dead wolf was a direwolf.”

 

 

“And her pups are direwolves,” added Jon. Had that been Bran, Catelyn might have taken solace in how he immediately came to the aid of his brother. Still it seemed rather notable that Jon did so, enough to earn him a begrudging respect from her. Had he always done that? Catelyn wanted to say that he did, but she honestly could not say so with any certainty.

 

 

“What does Jon leaving Winterfell have anything to do with the direwolves?” questioned Ned.

 

 

“Tell me, what was your first thought when you saw our house sigil dead with a stag’s antler through its throat?” queried Lyarra. Rickon was beginning to look around wide-eyed, clearly confused and bewildered by what was going on, but Lyarra continued to hold onto him rather possessively.

 

 

“If you’re about to give me a lecture about signs and portents from the Old Gods, don’t even start,” began Ned.

 

 

“Son, if you were given a sign from the Old Gods, you need take heed of them. If you aren’t, mayhaps that is why we’ve returned,” countered Rickard, who had quietly been sitting back and focusing on Rodrik until that moment.

 

 

“It was just a dead wolf, who died like hundreds of other wolves die every day. Just because one wolf dies, should I therefore hold up in my castle and hide until one of Old Nan’s stories come to life?” questioned Ned incredulously.

 

 

“But it had enough pups for all of your children,” chimed in Jon, for once sharing the same thought Catelyn had had in that instant.

 

 

Ned nearly scoffed as he shook his head and said, “Coincidence.”

 

 

“This must surely be the reason why we’ve returned, then. We’re the second call from the Old Gods to get you to pay attention,” declared Rickard.

 

 

“If that’s so, then it’s even more important that Jon go and seek out Orell,” declared Lyarra. Arya who had been watching the interaction rather still, at this point fidgeted.

 

 

Ned put his hand on Jon’s shoulder and directed him towards the door, “Jon isn’t going anywhere unless I say so. He’s my son, and he goes or stays where I say.” Ned then turned around himself as if he wanted to make a quick exit of the room.

 

 

“Tell me, Ned, do you still believe in the Old Gods? Or do you just mindlessly follow the old traditions?” questioned Lyarra.

 

 

Ned didn’t answer her as he left taking a confused Jon with him.

 

 

When Ned had left, Rickard turned to his wife and declared, “The truth, Arra.”

 

 

“What?” was her reply.

 

 

Catelyn knew that her goodmother would say nothing in front of the children and so she ordered, “Robb, Arya, leave.”

 

 

“Why does Rickon get to stay?” questioned Arya automatically.

 

 

“What she has to say concerns Rickon, isn’t that right?” challenged Catelyn. I mean, that part was obvious.

 

 

“Aye, it does,” answered Lyarra tentatively, eyeing her suspiciously.

 

 

“Then I want to hear what it is. He’s my little brother!” insisted Arya.

 

 

“Arya, mother said to go,” declared Robb directly.

 

 

“But—” began Arya as Robb took her by surprise by picking her up and taking her to the door.

 

 

“You’ll find out later, I’m sure,” said Robb with a wink. And suddenly Arya stopped fighting Robb so hard to stay. In fact when they reached the door, Arya gave Robb a wink back and hurried out the door. Robb then closed the door and turned around.

 

 

“You shouldn’t—” started Lyarra.

 

 

“Not going to happen,” interrupted Robb, who then caught Rickon’s eye. The toddler, happy for the attention pulled himself free from his grandmother and hurried across the bed and into Robb’s grasp.

 

 

“You were saying something about my little brother?” questioned Robb rather fiercely. In no moment was Catelyn more proud of her son than in this one.

 

 

Lyarra looked to Rickard, but he only returned her gaze with a look of his own which caused Lyarra to sigh and admit defeat.

 

 

She at long last admitted, “He’s a skin changer, like my uncle.”

 

 

Catelyn felt the room grow cold upon hearing those two words uttered together, followed quickly by a nausea that nearly caused her to lose what lunch she had eaten. Robb for his part, widen his eyes in shock, a similar reaction to what Rickard gave, for an instant connecting the two of them in a way Catelyn might not have noticed otherwise.

 

 

“A... skin changer?” asked Catelyn, wanting to be sure she had heard her goodmother correctly.

 

 

“While you Andals may have killed most of them south of the Neck, here in the true North there are still those who are born with the gift from time to time. Rickon’s rather young to be starting this early, but being with that direwolf pup of his must have triggered his gift,” declared Lyarra.

 

 

“Are you sure? Have you seen him and the pup together?” questioned Rickard.

 

 

“It’s the direwolves then… they did this to my son? They… made him a monster?” questioned Catelyn, feeling her emotions get the best of her as she recalled Septas telling her horror stories from the days of the Andal conquest when First Men would inhabit the skins of beasts and viciously tear the faithful to shreds all about, their bodies inhabited by demons while their minds inhabited beasts.

 

 

“Skin Changers are born, not made,” corrected Lyarra who then added, “And it’s important that he seeks training from another skin changer, soon, in how to handle his gift. If not, then… he could go completely feral given how young he is.”

 

 

 “No. I’m telling Farlen to take the wolves out to the Wolf's Wood and the matter will be solved,” declared Catelyn, rising and walking over to take Rickon from Robb.

 

 

“You’d take Grey Wind away too?” questioned Robb with an expression of shock upon his face.

 

 

“To protect one of you, I’d do anything,” reaffirmed Catelyn as she took Rickon forcibly from his grasp.

 

 

“No! Shaggy hasn’t done anything!” protested Rickon as he squirmed and kicked as she took him into her grasp.

 

 

“Breaking the bond now would only make things worse,” Lyarra tried to argue, but Catelyn had already stopped paying attention as Rickon had caused her to lose her balance and fall back into the Wall, causing her grip on Rickon to loosen and her son to quickly slip past Robb and open the door and rush out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth be told, I don't care that Orell Flint shares a name with Orell the Wildling. This is Westeros, people are allowed to share first names and break the One Steve Rule. Besides I chose the name because of what it means first and foremost, and only afterwards recalled Orell the Wildling existed.


	18. Old Wynn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on a prompt from Alternate History . com: WI the Stark kings brought back the Night's Queen to Winterfell because they where unable to kill her and in winterfell she is unable to leave or use her full magic due to the magic in the walls draining her every time she does?
> 
> And the whole rule about a Stark in winterfell was brought about so that if she does find away to leave they are tasked with trying to bring her back or kill her.
> 
> Does she babysit Rickon?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I had intended for this prompt fill to be a bit darker than it is, but the prompt led me.

**Old Wynn**

  
Old Wynn had been at Winterfell for as long as anyone could remember. She was considered as much a part of the family and the castle as the Throne of Winter or Ice itself. She was the only one who found living in the Old Keep tolerable anymore, having an extensive chambers to herself on the ground floor of the otherwise abandoned keep. She largely helped the nursemaids tend to the Stark children throughout the generations, always there with a pale smile, and a strange song that sounded like the soft thuds of falling snow. Many a Lord Stark had found comfort in Old Wynn as a babe, and now more than ever, Robb needed her help with Rickon.  
  
Robb took a deep breath and entered the chamber, and gasped at how much cooler it was inside than outside of it--in spite of the windows being left wide open. Her chamber was adorned with crafts of her own making. Embroidery of complicated patterns that upon distance appeared like snowflakes, tiny ice sculptures that never seemed to melt but were of past lords and ladies of Winterfell with direwolves always at their side. Robb heared a whimper and looked back to see Grey Wind hanging his head low and flattening his ears, as if to ask if he absolutely had to come into the room. Robb jerked his head and said "To me," and the overgrown pup followed him in reluctantly.  
  
Old Wynn wasn't in her sitting chambers, so he pressed further on into a small hall for eating which looked unused though still immaculately clean. Here he found Old Wynn seated at the table reading one of the older books from the library that was bound in bark and written in the old tongue. She had been translating the old texts for centuries, being the last alive in Winterfell to read them. She had tried teaching Robb, but he'd found the task hard to accomplish, though he did understand enough to get the meanings of most sentences that he read, just not well enough to speak it himself.  
  
Old Wynn closed her book as he entered the room. She turned around then to face him, her long pale white hair flittering about her like cloud of snow might upon being disturbed before settling down once again.  
  
"What is it Robb?" asked Old Wynn with a small smile etched upon her pale skin--her blue eyes meeting his.  
  
"I--I need your help, Old Wynn," stammered Robb, suddenly caught by the sight of her unlike he had before. Old she might be called, but she looked ever like a young maiden, not even twenty namedays old, and just as pretty.  
  
Old Wynn sighed and stood, her ice silk dress rippling like water as she moved. It was in a style rather old-fashioned, but one that suited her nevertheless. She approached Grey Wind who stood and stared, frozen to the spot as she knelt before the wolf and ran her chilled fingers through his fur. Robb could almost swear he felt them in his own hair, and shuddered alongside Grey Wind.  
  
"And what could the Heir to Winterfell need my help with?" asked Old Wynn with a slight smirk as she continued to give all her attention to Grey Wind, gently running her fingertips behind his ears. Gods did they feel good.  
  
"My mother refuses to leave Bran's side and pays little attention to Rickon."  
  
"Poor woman, I do not blame her... I did as much for my own daughter when I had and lost her."  
  
"Rickon is scared and confused and doesn't know what's going on. He's clinging to me because my mother isn't available."  
  
"The poor sweet child. I take it you wish me to look after Rickon then?" asked Old Wynn, looking up at Robb for the first time in the conversation.  
  
"If you could. Th--the men look to me now that father's gone, and with Rickon at my heels--"  
  
She finished his thought for him, as though she had heard it many times before. "You look more the boy than a proper lordling. Theon once told me much the same thing."  
  
"Theon?"  
  
"The Hungry Wolf, not the squid you know."  
  
Robb gulped, and then asked, "Am I much like him?"  
  
Old Wynn smiled and shook her head sadly before saying, "No, Robb, you are Edwyn come again, not Theon. If anyone is Theon come again, it's Rickon."  
  
Robb nodded his head and letting an awkward silence hang in the air for but a second, Robb recalled something she had said, and curious, asked, "You said you had had a daughter, once. What was she like?"  
  
"A Stark in features, an Iceborn in looks. She was your many times great grandmother, and she died giving birth to the Stark from whom all the rest of you are descended."  
  
"You married a Lord Stark then?" asked Robb.  
  
"No... I married his brother, Brandon," said Old Wynn, a single tear suddenly appearing at the corner of her eye and falling down her cheek. It shimmered in the light like a crystal and broke upon hitting the floor like ice.  
  
Old Wynn then turned away and said, "It would be best to leave now, Robb. I'll tend to Rickon anon."  
  
And Robb obeyed his many many times great-grandmother.  
  
A man was caught that night by Old Wynn attempting to set the Library Tower aflame. Calling all her powers to her she froze him upon the spot, making him a twisted ice sculpture to adorn the lichfield with all the others collected throughout the centuries such as the Red King, the Marsh King, and many nameless others. Mother eventually did recover, when Bran awoke, and Rickon took to Old Wynn, even in her weakened state, as much as Robb remembered doing at his brother's age. She cooed and played with him much like a mother would--Robb now saw that, and he guessed that in her eyes they all were her children.


	19. A Lady Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Catelyn had the detective skills of an Agatha Christie detective? A parody of both Agatha Christie detectives and A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By popular demand, I was asked to fill this prompt at Alternate History (dot) com:
> 
> What if Catelyn had the detective skills of an Agatha Christie detective?

**A LADY DETECTIVE**

_**An Eyrie Letter** _

  
She folded the letter once she had read it. She thought briefly of tossing it into the fire, but stayed her hand for the moment.  
  
"Cat, what does it say?" urged her husband, dear, sweet trusting Ned.  
  
Catelyn answered easily enough, "It's a warning, from my sister."  
  
"Indeed?" questioned Maester Luwin.  
  
"She says that the Lannisters have killed her husband, that she's fled to the Eyrie, and she warns me not to get involved."  
  
"If the Lannisters have killed Jon Arryn, then you must know, my lord, that the King isn't safe."  
  
"Aye, but that also means that this position Robert is offering me is too much trouble than it's worth," declared Ned. He looked over at her as she continued to stare at the letter.  
  
"Is there something more?" he asked.  
  
"Aye... why would she use our tongue?" asked Catelyn.  
  
"What do you mean _your_ tongue?"  
  
Catelyn turned around from the fire and sighed, "Many years ago, Lysa and I would write secrets to each other that we discovered about the servants or our parents. We developed a nonsense language to share these things because Father once discovered one of our notes and grew angry with the stable boy and the kitchen girl meeting each other in the hay loft above the stables. It was a childish thing, silly and inconsequential. To see such claims written in it now... sends a chill through me."  
  
Ned at that pulled a fur from the bed and wrapped her in it as he said, "She is sharing a secret isn't she? The very purpose for your secret tongue."  
  
"Except she knows sharing in that language will make me nostalgic for our shared childhood together. She could have said all this very easily without resorting to our secret language by merely implying in double meanings in an otherwise innocuous letter. She hasn't written to me outside of my nameday for anything in years and yet the first letter she does send is _this_? Something just isn't right about that. Then there's the lenses that they were hidden in--as Maester Luwin said it was a hint to look deeper, but that kind of thinking and messaging is far too clever for even Lysa. Don't get me wrong she isn't at all unintelligent, but that kind of dept subtlety typically went over her head whenever... oh!" and then she knew.  
  
"What is it Cat?" asked Ned.  
  
"I know exactly who sent this letter, and it isn't my sister." she declared, and Ned gave her his usual confused look whenever she came to a brilliant deduction. "Remember when Farlan brought his daughter was brought before us? He was trying to get her to admit that Jory had been the one to lay with her and pressured her intently to "tell us" what she told him, but the girl quite clearly didn't want to do so at first but eventually did under intense pressure? It's the same thing here."  
  
He answered simply and forthright, like any true Northman. "You're confusing me Cat."  
  
She smiled, stood on her tiptoes, kissed his cheek, and then said, "To put it plain, to be sure the writing is Lysa's, and it is our own secret tongue, but the words inside of it... they were told to her by someone else. Someone who knows that by discouraging us from coming to King's Landing and avoiding the Lannisters, that we will come and confront the Lannisters."  
  
"Who?" questioned Maester Luwin.  
  
"Petyr Baelish."  
  
Ned's face furrowed into a frown.  
  
"Why would the Master of Coin wish to bring you to King's Landing?" questioned Maester Luwin.  
  
Catelyn smiled and said, "An excellent question, but I am afraid it's one that I cannot answer here and now. Ned, you will accept Robert's offer."  
  
"No. Not with such rumors as the Lannisters being the cause of Jon's death. I'd best be rid of that adder's pit!"  
  
She sighed as she, like always, had to explain one of her clever plans simply and bluntly for him to comprehend. Honestly, sometimes she didn't know why she put up with his Northern... stubborness, but then she would recall what happened in her bedchambers, and took it all back. She then continued, "I shall discover the truth about Jon Arryn's death, my love. But in the meanwhile we must be seen to continue the ruse that Petyr wishes us to undertake."  
  
"How so?" he asked almost as petulantly as Rickon would.  
  
"Why, just act your normal grumpy self around Tywin Lannister's children, that ought to be more than sufficient."  
  
"I'm not grumpy," he protested.  
  
"No, but you can be when around them, continue to do so and assist Robert where you can. You and I shall go to the capital. Robb shall rule here with advice from Maester Luwin, and as for your sister's son..."  
  
Ned looked wide eyed at her in that instant.  
  
"Ned, if you thought the servants distracting me with the name of Ashara Dayne would blind me from the obvious fact you went to Dorne to retrieve your sister who was held over a year in the far South at the whims of that Targaryen prince, and for me to not figure out why you were so tight lipped about Jon's mother, then you my dear don't know me as well as you think you do."  
  
Ned scoffed and said, "I figured you knew years ago. Once you bent down to help Jon up as a toddler when he slipped on a patch of ice, but then stopped yourself and forced yourself to berate him rather unbelievably. I am only surprised that you chose to admit this in front of Maester Luwin."  
  
 _Well, Ned, you do have some powers of observation after all, when you choose to use them. Now if only I could make you want to use them more often..._  
  
Luwin, who had been trying to make himself seem unobtrusive, now looked between them both like a child caught stealing a pastry.  
  
Catelyn smiled and answered her husband simply, "Luwin has a Valyrian steel link on his chain--meaning he's studied magic at the Citadel at some point. He has a choker for a chain--meaning he was not at the Citadel for very long nor was he its most prestigious student. And he was sent North to us--a region well known for being unimportant in the grander events of the Seven Kingdoms. If he truly was in league with the rest of the Maesters and their wilely schemes, they would not have sent him here in the first place. We all know how the South views the North."  
  
Luwin looked rather upset at the accurate description of his abilities, but cleared his throat and tried to recover from it by saying, "You have my word, Lord and Lady Stark that the secret of Jon's mother will not leave this room from my lips."  
  
"Good, for I'd hate to see your blood being cleaned off of Ice before the Weirwood tree," said Catelyn both sincerely and as a warning. Luwin brought his hand to his choker and tugged at it.  
  
"As for Jon," reminded Ned, clearly wishing for the night to be over and for they to return to their beds.  
  
"As for Jon, I cannot be seen to accept him coming South with us and for the ruse of him being your bastard to be accepted, Ned. Nor can I allow him to be left here and have that ruse be believed either. What wronged wife allows her husband's bastard to remain in the castle with her eldest son unattended after all? It would cause more questions than bringing him along would. Either he must be sent to a trusted bannerman of yours, or he must go North with his Uncle..."  
  
"Howland Reed has always been a trusted banner of mine. We shall escort Jon south to the Neck where Howland's men shall take him. I'll need to send a rider, Luwin, Greywater Watch does not receive ravens."  
  
"I shall let the stables know to ready a swift horse with your message, my lord."  
  
Ned nodded as Luwin departed, leaving Catelyn alone with her husband. Catelyn folded up the letter and slipped it into a spot where she knew she could find it again. She would need it as proof should her suspicions prove true, which worried her a great deal if they indeed were, but for now she would return to the warm and loving embrace of Ned, and pray to the seven that his seed might yet quicken inside her for a sixth time. Ahh, yes, this was definitely why she put up with his Northern stubbornness.


	20. A Lady Detective, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn, a lady detective, continues to show just how the powers of intense observation a la Agatha Christie can reveal everything.

**A Lady Detective**

 

**_The Lightning Struck Tower_ **

  
  
As the King, Queen, Ser Jaime, Ned, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Sandor Clegane, Jory, and the harpist from the feast all gathered in the room they each looked about each other questioning why the other was here. The harpist in particular looked wild about the room.  
  
Once they were all seated or standing at the edge of the room, she stood and began to pace as she spoke. "I have called you all together because of the terrible crime that has been committed."  
  
"And what crime is that, Lady Stark?" questioned the Queen sweetly enough.  
  
"The attempted murder most foul of my son, Bran."  
  
"Murder? I thought the boy had fallen?" blustered the King.  
  
Catelyn then said, "My son is an accomplished climber--he's scaled that tower since he was old enough to crawl. He knew those stones better than his letters when he was learning to write, in short, that he fell strikes me as implausible."  
  
"You'd be surprised what kind of implausible things happen all the time," remarked the harpist.  
  
"Excuse me, but who are you?" queried the Queen.  
  
"Abel the bard, your grace," declared the harpist with a sly wink.  
  
Catelyn cleared her throat before continuing, "In any case, I believe that my son was up for one last climb up that tower, before our departure was to take place, when he came across something or someone he shouldn't have seen."  
  
At that the entire room was once again eying her completely. Having finally caught their attention once again, Catelyn continued, "Now, I know for a fact that you, Mance Rayder were busy giving your bag of silver to a man near the stables not but a few days ago."  
  
The entire room gasped as she turned directly to the harpist who'd declared himself Abel the bard not a moment earlier.

"Wait... who is Mance Rayder?" questioned Ser Jaime--only to be swatted into silence by the Queen.  
  
The bard's look of shock melted away and a few moments later he smirked and with a little laugh declared, "Well done, Lady Stark, though I must disappoint you by saying that my transaction had nothing to do with the fall of your dead boy."  
  
Catelyn countered immediately, "My son is not dead."  
  
Mance shook his head in disbelief. "He's dead already, you lot just won't accept it. Just like those poor souls who suffer with the Grey death--you hang on when you should simply let them go. Were he North of the Wall, we'd give his life to the gods and be done with it rather than letting him live out the remainder of his days in an endless dream."  
  
Robert found his attention drawn to his feet.  
  
Catelyn shook her head and declared, "My son shall awake."  
  
Mance was ready with his counterargument, "And if he does, what kind of life awaits him? Have you given thought to that? To be unable to walk, ride, or hunt. A constant dependent upon his family, unable to stand up on his own two feet. Better the mercy of a quick death than that existence."  
  
Ned was unable to listen any further and signaled to Jory and Rodrik to take Mance and tie him up.  
  
"Tell me, Lady Stark, what was it that gave my ruse away?" asked Mance as he held out his hands to be tied, not even resisting his own arrest.  
  
Catelyn raised her eyebrows and confidently declared, "At the feast you sang a bawdy song I'd not heard, either in the North or the South. I inquired among some of servants if they had heard it before, and Old Nan told me that it was an old Wildling song she'd heard from a Wildling she had taken as a lover the last time they invaded the North. Upon learning that I wondered what kind of Wildling would wish to infiltrate Winterfell and was treated by Old Nan of a tale, an old tale that most Starks choose to not have told about Bael the bard, who was a King-beyond-the-Wall himself, who sneaked into Winterfell and kidnapped a Stark daughter. Ned of course has known of your preparations beyond the Wall for some time, so it was a simple matter of filling in the obvious blanks. Taking the name Abel wasn't that clever of a disguise. It's almost as if you were daring us to discover your secret."  
  
Mance laughed and declared, "I was, and the gods preserve me, you far from disappointed me, Lady Stark."  
  
After looking upon her with awe, Mance was taken from the room by Jory. Ser Rodrik returned to his spot along the Wall.  
  
"Now, I might be a bit confused, but who is this Mance Rayder fellow?" questioned the King, clearly confused by all that had happened. The Queen swatted him too, and Robert exclaimed a sharp, Ow! but nothing else.  
  
Ned explained, "He's the self-proclaimed King-Beyond-The-Wall, who has been organizing the Wildlings for another invasion, or so my brother Benjen tells me."  
  
"That little man is King-Beyond-The-Wall?" guffawed Robert, as he could hardly contain himself from a jolly laugh.  
  
"I must compliment you, Lady Stark. Your superb deductive skills are an envy to behold. I wish the Goldcloaks had half of your good sense. Then they might be worth something then," declared Ser Jaime over Robert's dying laughs a few moments later.  
  
The Queen added onto her twin's backhanded compliment, "Indeed, such skill is wasted here in the North. I do hope you are coming down to King's Landing with us."  
  
"I will not," answered Catelyn simply, knowing this was the best way to pivot to the next point in her investigation.  
  
"Your son's condition is of course an understandable reason to decline--" began the Queen.  
  
Catelyn interrupted her, saying, "You misunderstand me your grace. I will be going to King's Landing, but not with you."  
  
"You will be coming along after, then? By boat mayhaps?" queried Ser Jaime.  
  
Catelyn smiled, her trap was set. "No, for you see, while Mance Rayder was here among the castle and paying silver to men at the stables for reasons best known only to him for now, I know for a fact that the Queen was in the tower when Bran fell."  
  
Again a collective gasp was held through the room.  
  
"You dare accuse me?!" roared Cersei.  
  
"Aye, for you see, your grace, I returned that very evening to the Tower to see if I could find anything that might suggest what had happened in that Tower. I found footprints and scuff marks in the dust upon the floor--some too small to be made by a man's and then I came upon this... long thin strand of golden blond hair." declared Catelyn as she pulled out the long blond hair from her sleeve where she'd safely kept it.  
  
"Mayhaps one of your servants--" began the Queen with a nervous smile.  
  
"None of my servants are blond. I should know as Lady of Winterfell--they all work for me. They have every other hair color imaginable, aye. But blond is a distinctly Andal hair color and none of my servants can claim that heritage," explained Catelyn thoroughly.  
  
"All right, I admit it, I... was in the Tower--" began the Queen as she stared at the long strand of golden blond hair hanging from Catelyn's fingers.  
  
But Catelyn didn't allow her to finish, "And you weren't alone, now were you. There were two sets of footprints in that tower. One small enough to be a woman and the other a man's footprints."  
  
Ser Jaime then spoke, "It was my own, Lady Stark. My sister and I were taking a tour of your castle before we were to leave."  
  
"Yes, I thought you might say that. Because climbing to the top of a ruined tower that looks abandoned and unlikely to attract others is exactly the sort of thing you'd wish to go and see, is it not? Especially considering that it is in the Old courtyard and part of the castle that is hardly used anymore. Why it is almost as if you wanted to be alone. And what sort of things do people do to be alone? After all, Ser Jaime it was rather odd that you did not accompany your King upon the hunt, wasn't it? Sandor Clegane as I recall made mention of that very fact, didn't you?"  
  
She had turned suddenly to the Hound who in that instant was surprised by her sudden heel turn.  
  
The Hound grunted, crossed his arms, and then added, "Aye, I did. I thought you were busy seeing your husband off."  
  
Catelyn responded, "I was, that doesn't mean I wasn't listening."  
  
Ser Jaime's smile was too wide for actual sincerity as he said, "That's all fine, we were up in the tower, we saw the boy slip and fall, it was a tragic thing."  
  
"Then why not mention it at once? Why wait until only now to admit that you saw everything happen?" questioned Catelyn, though she knew the answer already.  
  
The Queen answered, "We did not wish to add to your grief Lady Stark. You were inconsolable those first few days, after all."  
  
Catelyn admitted, "I was by my Bran's bedside by day, aye. But come the sunset I was looking over every nook and cranny of that Tower. I wanted to know what happened to my son, and nothing would stop me from discovering the truth. The truth which those footprints told me. For you see, at first I thought there were four people in the tower, two men and two women."  
  
"What would make you think that?" questioned Robert.  
  
"One set of footprints were with shoes, the others were barefoot. It took me a while to realize that comparing the sizes of the two that they were from the same feet, and simply that the shoes had been taken off."  
  
"What are you implying?" growled Jaime, his smile having long since left his face.  
  
"For what other reason do people escape to abandoned towers and take off their shoes if they're not also taking off their clothing as well?" challenged Catelyn, and suddenly the King understood what she wanted him to.  
  
"But that would be..." he then turned to his wife and shouted, "you incestuous whore!" the Queen who looked at Robert wide eyed as he raised his hand to strike her, but it was summarily cut off by the Kingslayer's sword. Robert in pain and fury fell over and on top of Cersei, pinning her to the bench they had been seated on. Jory, who had returned to the room at this point, joined Ned and Ser Rodrik in subduing the Kingslayer as all chaos broke out.  
  
"Dog, do something!" shouted the Queen.  
  
The Hound answered, "I was only hired to protect Prince Joffrey, and he's not the one in danger."  
  
Catelyn herself simply backed away to the second entrance, opened the door and allowed the guards that Ned and she'd agreed to place there in case Ser Jaime went mad with anger to burst forth and overwhelm the treacherous twins, taking them into custody.


	21. Rickard in Winterfell, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... here's a WI that popped into my head that wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> On the same day that Ned rides out to treat with the deserter Catelyn discovers a young boy claiming to be Rickard Stark wandering around Winterfell, looking for his mother. At first of course she just thinks it's a child of one of the servants and takes him to Vayon Poole, etc. It isn't until she runs into Old Nan that Catelyn gets confirmation that young Rickard is the real deal.
> 
> When Ned returns, he now has his father, as a kid... what to do?

**CATELYN**  
  
Ned was quiet... even for him. Catelyn bit her lip and felt the need to continue.  
  
"I just found him wandering a corridor--asking if I knew where his mother was."  
  
"And you're sure Old Nan recognized him?"  
  
"I'm rather sure. She and he began talking about a story she'd been interrupted telling him that she said she never recalled finishing for him when he was young."  
  
Ned nodded his head and then walked to the edge of the threshold to the room where Rickard sat attentively listening to Old Nan as she prattled away on the story. Bran had joined him, and Rickon, not wishing to be left out, sat between his brother and grandfather. It was a rather endearing sight, if Catelyn forgot that it was technically her goodfather there sitting with her youngest sons.  
  
"What do we tell the rest of the castle?"  
  
"I need to go to the godswood, Cat. Ice needs cleaning and then... then I'll address this."  
  
And so he departed, his icy mask never once falling in her presence.  
  
\---  
  
 **RICKARD**  
  
Rickard kicked his feet as he sat on the stool waiting for the man who called himself Lord of Winterfell. But he couldn't be Lord of Winterfell, Father was Lord of Winterfell, and this man wasn't Father. The red-haired Lady Stark had said that the man would speak with him after the meal, which had meant he couldn't run off with Bran who wanted to show him the best places to climb and see Winterfell from. Instead he was stuck here in his father's solar--and yet it wasn't his father's solar all the same. It was decorated differently--well with what little decorations there were. Someone had embroidered a direwolf running on a white banner and it had been hung on the wall--it looked to have been done by a young girl given how big the stitches were. Rickard remembered his cousins Branda and Lya learning how to stitch, and they'd always been told how big stitches were bad. There was also a new tapestry that was more skillfully embroidered of what looked to be a wolf, a falcon, a trout, and a stag fighting and killing a dragon. Somehow that seemed odd to Rickard's eyes... very odd.  
  
It was then that the door to the solar opened and the man walked in. Rickard looked up in awe at the man who to his eyes seemed to loom over him, reminding him of just how small he was. As if knowing how much standing over him was bothering him, the man knelt down to meet his level. Seeing his face up close, Rickard had to admit he rather looked like father, but also not like him as well. That is, it was clear that the man was a Stark, just like father, but there was something else to him that wasn't. Somehow the man seemed familiar to Rickard, as though he should know him, and yet he didn't. The man stared at Rickard for what felt to be a long time.  
  
"You must be rather confused."  
  
Rickard just nodded his head to start.  
  
"What do you want to know first?"  
  
"Where are my parents?"  
  
The man sighed and said, "Dead... a long time now."  
  
"I just saw my mother this morning!"  
  
"You were in a different time then... now... well now... how to put it."  
  
"Different time?"  
  
"You know how each day you get bigger and older?" asked the man.  
  
Rickard shook his head, rather confused.  
  
"Well, you know what comes after today, right?"  
  
"Tomorrow."  
  
"Yes, and what was before today?"  
  
"Yesterday."  
  
"Good, let's start there. Normally people go from yesterday to today to tomorrow, taking each day at a time."  
  
Rickard nodded his head.  
  
"But not you. You went from yesterday, skipped today, and went into tomorrow."  
  
"How?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"But if I skipped today, then what happened to my parents?"  
  
"Well, you skipped a lot of todays."  
  
Rickard nodded his head slowly and then asked, "How many?"  
  
"Over fifty namedays."  
  
"So I'd be old."  
  
"If you went through all those namedays. But you skipped them."  
  
"Are you one of my cousins then?"  
  
"In a way, aye."  
  
"Was Branda or Lya your mother?"  
  
"Lyarra was my mother's name."  
  
"Is she still here?"  
  
It would be nice to talk to someone other than Old Nan who he remembered--even if she'd be really old. Lya was always fun to be around too.  
  
The man gave him a small sad smile and said, "She died giving birth to my little brother."  
  
"Why didn't Branda become Lady of Winterfell then, if I disappeared? Branda was older."  
  
"She married a Rogers and lives in Amberly now, down in the South."  
  
Rickard nodded his head. It was starting to make some sense now to him. This was Lya's son--she had to have married a Karstark or some other bannerman of father's, and that's why he looked like Father to Rickard and yet not. Branda married a Southron so Lya became Lady of Winterfell--and all because he'd skipped so many namedays to arrive here, and now.  
  
"Did they miss me?" asked Rickard.  
  
It was now Lord Stark's turn to look somewhat confused, which did remind Rickard a bit of Lya.  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Lord Stark.  
  
"Did they miss me when I disappeared," repeated Rickard, suddenly fearful that Lya hadn't cared enough about him to miss him, or that his parents had forgotten him.  
  
The man was quiet for a moment before saying, "I'm sure they did."  
  
\---  
  
Rickard found his youngest cousins each different in their own way. They mostly looked like their Tully mother. Robb was the eldest, but wasn't above playing in the summer snows with them like most older boys were when Rickard was from. Sansa was the oldest girl, and she was exactly like her mother in looks and how she acted. Then came Arya, who reminded Rickard of Lyarra, only older and better at throwing snowballs like Branda had been. Arya rather liked him from the start, proudly declaring that he looked like her and Jon, and that she was going to look after him like he was her little brother, even if he was their cousin. Bran loved to climb and was learning how to fight with a sword--Rickard wanted to learn, but Ser Rodrik said he was just shy of a nameday from learning. Rickon was the baby of the family, and often Rickard found himself paired with him--especially by Lady Tully Stark who treated him as though she expected him to play with the baby all the time. Rickon was fun to wrestle and chase with--but he was a little too wild for Rickard's tastes to be around ALL the time.  
  
Jon was Lord Stark's bastard son. He looked exactly like Lord Stark in every feature, except younger. He was often busy training at the practice yards with Robb, but when he wasn't he was the best snowball thrower of them all, and Rickard wanted to be on his team when the summer snows were deep enough.  
  
What was most weird about his cousins though were the direwolf pups who followed them round now that they were beginning to be weaned. At first Rickard had wanted one as well, and disappointed when he was told there weren't anymore direwolf pups to be had. But then he watched as the direwolves seemed to almost mirror their master or mistress, and a chill went up Rickard's spine. This was clearly the work of the Old Gods--the direwolves being found south of the Wall and his skipping time--but what did the Old gods want by doing all this? That was something Rickard couldn't figure out.

 

\---

 

"I didn't know you had a fifth son, Ned," boomed the big fat man everyone was calling the King. He had arrived with a grand procession trailing behind him. He didn't look like a Targaryen--and his banners said he was a Baratheon. Lord Stark had assembled all of Winterfell to the New Courtyard to greet the King as he entered.  
  
"This is Rickard, my cousin," stated Lord Stark firmly.  
  
The King nodded his head and then asked, "Named in honor of your father then?"  
  
"Aye."  
  
Lord Stark's father had been named Rickard too? How odd.  
  
The fat King then turned and bombastically declared, "Lord Rickard was an honorable man. Your cousin and I overthrew the Mad King for what he did to him and his son. May you grow to do honor to his legacy, lad."  
  
All Rickard could think to say in response to such a charge was, "Thank you, your grace." Just like Lady Tully Stark had drilled into him.   
  
The fat King nodded and then patted Rickon on the head before turning to Lord Stark and shouting "Come Ned, I've come to pay my respects!"  
  
\---  
  
Rickard was helping Bran to wash his unnamed wolf in the godswood. The pup had grown almost as big as a regular dog by now. Apparently unimpressed by the bath, the pup shook himself so much that Rickard and Bran got as soaked as the pup had been.  
  
"I know the best place to dry off--up on the roof of the guest house," declared Bran, who immediately shucked his boots and began to climb. Rickard, who had only just started to learn how to climb from Bran, and had trouble seeing how to go from spot to spot like he did, took much more time to ascend the wall than Bran had, but he eventually got there having paid attention to Bran's way up the Wall. The pup disappeared into the godswood as the climbed. Bran was right though, laying up on the roof of the guest house certainly was a good way to get dry rather quickly.  
  
"Want to climb further?" asked Bran excitedly, as though he were itching to do some more.  
  
"No... I'm good, you can go on without me if you want."  
  
But Bran didn't go, instead settling back down and deciding that staying with him was what he wanted to do--though Rickard suspected that Bran was really told to look after him and play with him. Likely it was his mother, the Tully Stark.  
  
After growing bored of describing all the shapes in the clouds in the sky above, they climbed back down the other side of the guest house and into the courtyard to go and greet the returning hunting party.  
  
\---  
  
Rickard was rather sad to see Lord Stark go--especially with Arya, Sansa, and Bran leaving with him. Rickard had asked to come to King's Landing when Lord Stark had told his children that they were to go there when he served as Hand, but Lord Stark had looked at him oddly and said, "I don't think you'd like it south of the Neck."  
  
When Rickard had tried to argue with Lord Stark, his cousin simply stood up and gave him a long piercing stare, that told Rickard that any further arguing wouldn't work. It was so like father used to do, it shocked him silent.  
  
What upset Rickard just as much though was that Jon was leaving Winterfell too, leaving for the Night's Watch. The only Starks left in Winterfell then would be Robb and Rickon, and Rickard would have no one to play with him as much as Bran, Arya, or Jon did.  
  
Just before leaving, Lord Stark picked him up and hugged him. Lord Stark had hardly touched him before this hug, but there was something to it which seemed to comfort both boy and man.  
  
"You be good, Rickard, and look after Rickon for me, won't you?" asked Lord Stark rather earnestly.  
  
"I will," said Rickard, rather proud that his cousin asked this of him and yet disassified it meant looking after the baby and his big black direwolf more. Lord Stark ended the hug by putting him back down, tussling his hair--which Rickard did not like, but he let Lord Stark do for some strange reason, and then he moved on to the Tully Stark for his final goodbye kiss.

 

\---

 

The Queen's brother arrived at Winterfell and Robb, as the Stark in Winterfell, had greeted him and accepted him into the castle. This did not sit well with the Tully Stark as Rickard found out when he went to ask Robb if he might overrule Ser Rodrik into letting him practice in the practice yard. The door to the Lord's solar was open and voices could be heard arguing inside that Rickard couldn't help but put his ear to the crack in the door and listen.  
  
"His family murdered Lord Arryn, and you accept him under our roof--"  
  
"Is every man guilty for the crimes of their family? If Arya stole a piece of bread from the kitchens, would you punish Sansa for it?"   
  
The silence was deafening.  
  
"I thank you for your advice mother, but I cannot see what use it is to slight a man who has done nothing to us himself."  
  
"If anything happens to Rickon or Rickard for that matter--"  
  
"He will be gone come tomorrow afternoon, and all this fuss will have been over nothing."  
  
And then Rickard heard footfalls approaching the door. Startled, he tried to pull back from his spot against the door only to be too late and discovered by Robb opening the door above.  
  
"And what were you doing?" asked Robb, his tone still angry.  
  
"I... I just wanted to ask if I could train with you and Ser Rodrik..."  
  
"You do know it isn't polite to listen to other people's conversations, don't you?" piped in Lady Tully Stark.  
  
"I wasn't listening!" protested Rickard.  
  
Robb discounted this and said, "I will speak to Ser Rodrik about it, in the meanwhile, go wash up for the evening meal. We have a guest, and you ought to look as well as you did at the King's Feast."  
  
Rickard departed knowing that Ser Rodrik wasn't going to change his mind and so he scuffled off to his chambers rather gloomy at the thought of continuing to have little else to do than learning his sums and letters from Maester Luwin, or chasing Rickon and Shaggydog down.  
  
\---  
  
"You're looking rather glum," commented the Queen's brother as he chewed his roast pork. Lady Tully Stark had sat him between Rickon and the dwarf on the dais.  
  
"Ser Rodrik says I'm too young to start training in the practice yard."  
  
"Too young and small, hmm?" questioned the Queen's brother. Rickard contorted his face in response. He wasn't small, well mayhaps in comparison to a man grown, but he was big for a boy his age.  
  
"I'm not small."  
  
"Is that so, then my father shall be pleased to hear that I'm the giant of Lannister," clucked the dwarf.  
  
"You're not a giant," laughed Rickard, thinking the dwarf silly.  
  
"And what am I then? I've been called oh so many things it's hard to keep track of them all. A dwarf, imp, even a misshapen little monkey demon."  
  
Rickard could not help but giggle at the dwarf.  
  
"See, even you think of me as such, but did you know that I don't let that stop me?" The dwarf swallowed before continuing, "If you want something, my little Starkling, you'll find a way to make it happen."  
  
"But--"  
  
"No buts. Listen. Now, you see that pitcher of wine over there? It's full of rather succulent Arbor Gold, but here I am all the way at the other end of the table. Now I could get up and waddle myself on over there and pour the wine myself, but I am the son of a Great Lord, and I need not do such things myself. I could of course politely ask for the wine to be passed down, and I'm sure that after much and many glares from your cousin's lady mother, the wine would come to me. But I am a thirsty man, and a thirsty man wants what he wants now. Girl!"  
  
The dwarf called to a passing serving girl, one who Rickard recognized from his few expeditions to the kitchens to nick a bite of food early every now and then.  
  
"Her name is Nell."  
  
At the sound of her name, Nell stopped immediately and came over to ask, "And what does me little lordling want?"  
  
The dwarf then interjected, "Ahh, Nelly, what a pretty name."  
  
"I thank you m'lord--my lord... my lord."  
  
"Newly promoted to serving at feasts, then?"  
  
"I used to be a scullery maid."  
  
"And now you're serving the dishes instead of scrubbing them clean. What a way to come up in the world, we should give a toast to your ascension... but what's this, I'm nearly out of wine. This will not do, you deserve a full cup to be toasted to."  
  
"I'll fetch my lord some wine," said Nell with a blush, and she hurried to the other end of the table where she grabbed the flagon and brought it over and filled the dwarf's cup.  
  
"To unexpected fortunes, may they ever bless us!" toasted the dwarf to Nell as he slipped her a piece of silver. She blushed and thanked him and departed, leaving the flagon ready by   
  
"That was easy," protested Rickard.  
  
"Was it? I had been trying for close onto an hour to get my cup running over with wine, but I was ignored. However, one word from you, little Starkling, and suddenly I'm drinking some of the best wine in this castle."  
  
Rickard was astounded at the dwarf and amazed that he had been roped in on the task in the first place. In truth Rickard had to admire what the dwarf had tricked him into doing for him.  
  
The dwarf smirked and proffered, "Think of this as a free lesson. Learn to twist others to your will, and you'll never go thirsty again."  
  
Rickard nodded his head and committed that thought in his mind, willing himself to remember it.  
  
\---  
  
The shield was heavy, as was the sword, and the leather cap for a helmet was meant for a larger boy, but Rickard summoned all his strength to hold them up. He had managed to convince Robb to overrule Ser Rodrik with that trick Tyrion the dwarf had taught him.  
  
"Lord Stark said I was to look after Rickon."  
  
"Aye, and you're doing a good job of it," praised Robb dismissively as he looked through some papers accounting for the harvest which was just beginning to be collected.  
  
"But what if something were to happen and Winterfell were attacked, how could I protect Rickon then?" asked Rickard innocently enough.  
  
"If Winterfell was attacked, you and Rickon would be locked away in the Great Keep with my mother until the siege had ended," answered Robb dully.  
  
"Does your lady mother know how to fight if a warrior broke his way into the Keep?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then I should learn! Even if it's just with a little sword, it doesn't have to be a big one... or a knife! I could carry it with me to help protect Rickon!" insisted Rickard.  
  
Robb sighed, but Rickard saw in his eyes, even then, that he'd won.  
  
Knife lessons very quickly turned into sword lessons as Rickard was sure to ask Ser Rodrik what everything in the armory was, thus leading him to put on the pieces of practice armor and wooden practice swords much to the bemusement and eventual agreement of Ser Rodrik. It had taken a lot of convincing, but eventually he was allowed to learn and he no longer felt so much a baby. That is until one afternoon when a grave looking Lady Tully Stark interrupted his lesson to speak with Ser Rodrik. Rickard had been learning how to slice properly with his sword coming down over his head against one of the stuffed sacks of the practice yard.  
  
"Continue, lad, and keep your arm slightly bent. You don't want it locking up on you while you're swinging!" tutored Ser Rodrik.  
  
Rickard continued to swing and slice, but he strained his ears to hear what Lady Tully Stark and Ser Rodrik were saying all the same, timing his swings to try and hit when either took a breath--though he wasn't always perfect with that.  
  
"What news my lady?"  
  
"The King and Queen are dead. The King killed the Queen in a fit of rage, and Ser Jaime Lannister killed the King. Ser Jaime has been captured, tried, and executed for regicide. Stannis is now King, with King Robert's children being declared bastards by incest through the Queen and her brother."  
  
"A war, then. This'll be war. Tywin Lannister won't stand for this."  
  
"Ned says to send word to Lords Glover and Cerwyn, and have them gather a hundred bowmen each and place them at Moat Cailin immediately."  
  
"So it'll be done, my lady."  
  
"Two hundred bowmen won't be enough to fight Lord Tywin," stated Lady Tully Stark.  
  
"If Lord Stark wants Moat Cailin filled with archers, it's likely he don't mean to fight with them, unless the Lannisters come up the causeway."  
  
"Riverrun lays straight in the path between the Westerlands and Moat Cailin, how can we defend the Riverlands with only two hundred archers?"  
  
"That, I think would be a matter for your father and brother to consider."  
  
And with that Lady Tully Stark departed in a huff and fury for the Maester's tower. By this time Rickard, whose arm had grown tired had stopped swinging and wondered if a war meant that the North was going to be attacked.


	22. The Trial of Princess Elia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhaegar won at the Trident, but now must deal with the fallout of his annulment and Tywin Lannister's ambitions. Rhaenys is disregarded and tempest tossed as the world about her shifts and changes suddenly in the aftermath of the rebellion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Season Seven's mishandling of what an annulment actually means (it's not a quickie divorce--it's declaring that the marriage never took place in the first place, which has retroactive consequences such as turning children into bastards and ex-wives into whores for bearing those bastards), and the consequences getting one that Rhaegar would have had to pay, in addition to not taking into consideration Tywin Lannister's ambitions.

** The Trial of Princess Elia **

  
**RHAENYS**

  
Rhaenys knew not why she could not see her mother. Her good nurse, Missei, had been so attentive, and Balerion had hardly left her side, but mother was nowhere to be found. Instead she had to be content to pass her days playing with her little brother, Aegon, whose sickly weak coughs fretted the nurse, though she liked to pretend that they didn't. Aegon was crawling now, though only Rhaenys and Missei seemed to care anymore since they hardly left the tower chambers for days upon days. Balerion didn't like it up here, he hissed and scratched at everything, sticking his little paws beneath the wooden doors, causing Rhaenys to have to pick Balerion up by the scruff of his neck and put him in his corner as she scolded him. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to and endless procession of moons as far as Rhaenys could tell. Sometimes a maester--not Grandmaester Pycelle--would come and visit and suggest things to Missei for how to handle Aegon's coughing fits that being in this damp tower only made worse. Sitting next to the fire was only so helpful when more often than not the servants would only bring a small amount of firewood that never lasted as long as Aegon needed--and no matter how many blankets he was wrapped in, Aegon always seemed to be shiverring. When Aegon wasn't coughing, shivering, or feeding at Missei's bosom, he often spent most of the day chewing his fingers. Whenever Missei found him doing so she grabbed his hands and pull them from his mouth and slap them--saying that he'd ruin his mouth that way. All that did was make him start to cry, and Rhaenys would feel obligated to pick up her heavy baby brother and hug him as much as she could like mother would her. If mother couldn't be there for him, she could be there instead.  
  
Servants were the only people who Rhaenys saw in those days, though once Rhaenys was awoken to shouting from further down the stairs.  
  
"I will see them! They are my sister's children! I have the right!" bellowed an angry voice that echoed up to their chambers and caused Aegon to wake with a coughing fit and Rhaenys to hid herself behind Missei's ever growing form in protection from whatever nasty thing lay down the steps. Balerion hissed and growled at being disturbed, like a good dragon kitty.  
  
Finally one day, Rhaenys was told it was her nameday and that she should dress very prettily for she was to meet someone special.  
  
"Is it mother?" asked Rhaenys innocently.  
  
"No, my child, but you shall see her soon," answered Missei with a sad strained smile like she did every day that Rhaenys asked.  
  
"How soon?" lamented Rhaenys, tired of the same old answer as Missei fussed with the stays on her very fine red silk dress.  
  
"Soon enough my sweet summer child," said Missei with another smile and a kiss on Rhaenys' forehead, though this time Rhaenys felt something wet drip onto her head. She looked up, wondering if the damp dew that sometimes fell from the tower ceiling had hit her upon the head. But the tower was oddly dry today and instead Rhaenys looked up to find Missei crying.  
  
It was not long after that, that Rhaenys heard footsteps coming up the tower, followed by a knock at the door which startled Rhaenys, though the steps had given her warning of the approach of someone.  
  
Missei wiped the tears from her fat round cheeks and with some difficulty of her large pregnant belly, stood.  
  
"She's ready," declared Missei.  
  
And then the door opened and in stepped two warriors, one dressed in a red cloak and the other in a grey, who took Rhaenys by the hand and took her from the room without word. The tower door was slammed shut after that, and Aegon began to cough and cry in response, and Rhaenys saw a tiny black paw slip underneath the door and scratch uselessly at the stone and wood.  
  
"Balerion! Aegon!" called Rhaenys as she turned and heard her kitty dragon yowl and her little brother cough at the separation from her.  
  
"Come along," grunted the redcloak, pulling her arm harder than he had before.  
  
Rhaenys was taken down back into the main part of the castle and then across the dry moat and into Maegor's Holdfast. It was there that Rhaenys was brought into a large chamber with many lords and septons all arguing over one another. Her father was sitting upon a small throne on a raised dais, with a woman upon his left that was gold of hair who held herself as though she thought herself born to sit in Rhaenys' mother's chair. Rhaenys didn't like her. Beside her stood a bald man with golden hair upon the sides of his head, dressed in red and gold. They were looking down upon a collection of Septons and Septas who talked and whispered among each other, bedecked in white robes and crystal jewelry that shimmered in the light of the room. Rhaenys stood at the back of the room, and told to wait.  
  
"The Prince Regent must understand, that no matter how many times his _request_ is phrased differently that the answer must still be no." Then the elderly Septon looked in the direction of the bald man and said, "After all, need he be reminded that the crown does not rest upon his head."  
  
"For the last time, the High Septon Maynard annulled the marriage before a weirwood tree in Dorne, and made note of it in his private journal. I saw the entry myself!" declared her father.  
  
A shriveled old Septa, who needed a cane to stand, did so and said rather firmly for one so ancient, "While I can quite vigorously recall the late High Septon recording everything from his bowel movemets to how many steps there were in the Sept of Baelor, the fact remains that these journals are not here at this time, nor can they be found."  
  
At this Rhaenys thought she saw the bald man give a slight nod and a smirk to the Septa--but that might have been her imagination.  
  
"Is my word worth so little?" challenged father.  
  
"There are precedents to uphold," chimed in another Septon, and for once all the other Septons and Septas bobbed their heads in agreement.  
  
"Your marriage to the Princess Elia was consummated and produced heirs, and further, the matter of consanguinity does not apply to Targaryens, as was established in law by Jaehaerys I as part of the reconciliation of the faith with the crown following the troublesome reign of Maegor."  
  
"There is one matter in which I could have sought an annulment without concerns of consummation and consanguinity--if Elia had been betrothed to another at the time of our marriage, then legally in the sight of Gods and Men, we would never have been married in the first place."  
  
At this a few Septons heads bobbed in agreement while others shook their heads.  
  
The bald man then spoke, "My prince, surely you must be aware that even if she had once been engaged to someone else, that by the time she was brought to King's Landing that the betrothal would have been suitably compensated?"  
  
"To whom was she engaged?"  
  
"Baelor Hightower," declared her father.  
  
At this the room was broken by a mad laughter which came from the crowd of lords. Rhaenys turned to see a dark-haired man dressed in red and orange laughing heartily.  
  
"Do you find these matters so humorous, Prince Oberyn?" questioned the bald man.  
  
Oberyn? Why did that name sound so familiar?  
  
"You must forgive me, Lord Lannister, but my sister betrothed to _him_? The thought is ridiculous to conceive. No, I accompanied my sister on her trip to Oldtown myself, and while my mother considered the match, she did not at any time betroth my sister to Baelor Breakwind," and once again the man burst into an uncontrollable laughter, that even Rhaenys found contagious along with the rest of those assembled, except for her father... and the bald man and his daughter. The bald man then walked over to a red cloak and grabbed a poleaxe from him and began hitting its pole upon the stone floor of the chamber, drawing the attention and serious of the room back into focus.  
  
The bald man answered, "The matter remains, my Prince, while I have no doubt you are telling the truth, the fact is, without evidence of this annulment, I am afraid to say that your second marriage was an act of polygamy, which while not unusual for Targaryens, hasn't been seen in over a century, and was agreed by the Conciliator to be a practice that Targaryens would not condone anymore. With that matter settled we can move on to the arguments for why to annul the marriage now, properly and--"  
  
Father then interrupted with a fury that Rhaenys had never seen in him as he said, "The Princess of Dorne did not come to my marriage bed a virgin. And I do have a witness for that."  
  
The laughing man laughed again, though there seemed to be an edge to it, from what Rhaenys could see.  
  
The bald man replied, "Then let this witness come forward."  
  
Father turned to the Kingsguard at his right hand side that had stood there silently throughout the entire affair.  
  
"Ser Arthur Dayne, I command you as the Prince Regent to tell them the truth about you and Elia."  
  
The entire room gasped, but Rhaenys knew not why. Ser Arthur turned and stared at father before removing his helmet and turning to speak to the Septons and Septas.  
  
"While the Princess, her mother and brother were traveling for Casterly Rock, they stopped at Starfall where she and I..." Ser Arthur cut off and turned to look at father, who glowered at him.  
  
"Where she and I made love. We were just six and ten namedays each."  
  
"And for such a sweet thing, you would annul a marriage?!" challenged Oberyn.  
  
"Do you hereby corroborate that such a event took place between your sister and Ser Arthur Dayne?" questioned one of the younger Septons with a weasel face.  
  
However the ancient Septa stood and declared, "The Princess should be given the right to testify for her part in this affair."  
  
And all the rest of the Septas and a few Septons agreed, forcing Father to send Ser Arthur to get mother, and Rhaenys watched as he all too eagerly left father's side.  
  
A lot of time passed, and Rhaenys began to grow bored standing along the back of the room. The lords all talked among themselves, and the golden haired woman sitting in mother's throne tried sneaking her hand onto Father's but Father turned and stared at the woman who then pulled it back as quickly as she'd sneaked it there.  
  
But then when Ser Arthur appeared again, suddenly the room grew quiet. He stepped aside to reveal mother, dressed in a thin gown of black and red, with a black veil pulled back and over her long hair.  
  
"Mother!" exclaimed Rhaenys as she struggled free of her red cloak captor and ran forward to an aisle between seats of lords. The entire room then turned to watch as she ran for mother, but Rhaenys cared not, all that mattered was that Mother was there!  
  
But Rhaenys found herself stopped by the red cloak who had grabbed a hold of her other arm. She tried to wretch it free, only to find the grip tighten even more. The bald man smirked as she was brought back to the back of the room. Mother looked longingly at her but then was distracted as a man standing guard by the threshold of which she'd yet to cross banged his pole against the stone floor and cried "Elia, Princess of Dorne, come into the court."  
  
Mother's attention was immediately drawn to the crier, and then Father as the crier repeated his cry. Rhaenys watched as Father and Mother stared at one another, neither looking at each other like they used to, but instead as strangers, unacquainted with one another.  
  
"Elia, Princess of Dorne, come into the court."  
  
Still mother was silent and unmoving. She now looked at the bald man and his daughter, sitting by father's side.  
  
"Elia, Princess of Dorne, come into the court."  
  
It was after the seventh time she was called that Mother answered from behind the threshold, "My lords and Most Devout. I understand that I am brought to this court to testify as to whether I was truly married to my husband, the Prince Regent. If I was not, then according to your laws I was no more than his whore and our children, bastards."  
  
A long silence held throughout the room before mother added, "Since I see this trial is weighted against me before I even step foot in it, I must appeal my case to the High Septon."  
  
"But we've yet to pick a High Septon to replace the last! That was to be after--" began a Septon, but mother had turned and left, Ser Arthur following after her.  
  
"Call her back here!" shouted the ancient Septa.  
  
Father meanwhile looked at the bald man who nodded to him and then towards her. Rhaenys failed to understand what this meant until she was dragged once again out of the room by the red cloak. Rhaenys fought, trying to escape and run back and after her mother, but soon she was being picked up by some other lady, who Rhaenys fought until she realized it was mother.  
  
"Lord Tywin says you have a few minutes," grumbled the red cloak before he took a few steps back in the corridor in which they'd met.  
  
"Mother!" squealed Rhaenys as she buried herself in her mother's tight embrace.  
  
"Rhaenys... my sweet darling girl... one day you'll understand why I did this for you. One day you will," whispered mother in her ear, but Rhaenys could hardly care, she and mother were together once again.  
  
"Aegon is sick," informed Rhaenys, dutifully.  
  
Mother was silent for a long while before saying, "Then Missei will take care of him."  
  
"I will too!" she insisted.  
  
"Of course you will..." agreed Mother as she lovingly kissed Rhaenys on her cheek.  
  
"Rhaenys, you're going to go away for a little while. Somewhere safe and far far away from here."  
  
"But I want to be with you!"  
  
"Hush, we don't have long. I want you to remember that no matter what you're called, no matter who says otherwise, that you are a dragon and a Targaryen. Do you understand?"  
  
"But mother--"  
  
"You are a true Targaryen, _remember_ that Rhaenys, and never say otherwise."  
  
"I'll remember."  
  
"Good, now be a good girl and be strong for me," said mother, as she set her on the ground. Rhaenys nodded as the red cloak returned took her by the hand and led her away further down the corridor. Mother stood watching her as she left until they'd turned a corner and her mother would disappear from her life for good.  
  
The red cloak instead of returning to the tower, brought her to another smaller chamber which was guarded by a bunch of men dressed in white and grey. Inside was an older boy who looked as though he wasn't old enough to grow a beard, pacing until the door opened and Rhaenys was presented to him. Inside was also the Grandmaester, who looked to have been dozing just before the doors had opened.  
  
"What's this? Where is my nephew? Where's Aegon?" demanded the boy.  
  
"Lord Stark, you are given the wardship of Rhaenys Waters as a token of good faith between House Stark and House Targaryen."  
  
"I came to the capital for my nephews!" shouted the boy.  
  
"Lord Benjen, Aegon Sand is, I assure you under the protection of a man of noble blood."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Prince Oberyn Martell."  
  
The boy went cold silent for a moment before laughing bitterly, "Of course... the Lion cannot buy our loyalties, so he purchases it the only other way he knows how to lead... through fear. I refuse to play this game of daggers!"  
  
The grandmaester coughed and added, "My lord, I'd remind you that Lord Tywin has assured that Robb Stark is very well taken care of at Casterly Rock and shall receive in due time the proper education that should be expected of a lordling, that is of course, with your cooperation. Otherwise... Lord Tywin has said he might be apt to forget about your nephew."  
  
"The Others take you Southrons, all of you!"   
  
"And what answer should I tell the Lord Hand?" questioned the Grandmaester.  
  
A long silence fell between the wolf boy and the aged Grandmaester, but eventually the lordling frowned and begrudingly said, "I'll take her and raise her in Winterfell."  
  
"Fair travels, my lord," said the Grandmaester with a wicked smile.  
  
And that was the day, Rhaenys' life changed entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What originally started as a re-telling of the perils of Elizabeth I and Mary I as young children turned into something else entirely as I wrote.
> 
> This might have a follow up chapter one day, or not.


	23. Family Reunion - A Modern AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon Snow has had to deal with his flighty impetuous mother for most of his life, well at least when Uncle Ned would permit visitation rights. But now Jon is to meet his father's family on the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written right after I had gone to the beach for the first time in over a decade I'd say. Another response to Season Seven and it's interpretation of events, this time with a more satirical eye.

**FAMILY REUNION**

  
Jon secured his sunglasses, pulled his cap down over his face, zipped up his windbreaker, and stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. There, no one would recognize him... and he'd be sweating his balls off in the hot summer heat at the beach vacation that had been arranged. He was with his Mom this weekend, one of his less than desired places to be. His uncle had gained custody over him when his father had been arrested for kidnapping and pedophilia and his mother had been arrested for assaulting the police officers doing the arresting--the child that his father had leered at in question had been his then teenage mother, Lyanna Stark. Uncle Ned had tried to work with Mom to some degree, being her protective and responsible older brother, but Mom kept making things worse for herself at the trial and had been locked away in Juvenile Detention until she was eighteen. While Father had served his time and even gotten parole for good behavior--he was forever in the system as a pedophile. Meanwhile Mom would frequently fuck up only to call Uncle Ned to bail her out--as grandfather had disavowed knowing her after the public humiliation of the trial. Uncle Ned had got custody of Jon relatively easily as his father's family wanted little to do with him--considering he was the love child that had disturbed their otherwise gentile lives. Sometimes, Jon wished he hadn't a clue who either his parents were, it would have been so much easier growing up with Uncle Ned thinking himself as his son. After all, everyone constantly told him he looked exactly like Uncle Ned--and he was a great dad, far better than his own father--what little he'd gotten to see him. Uncle Ned had five children of his own, with Aunt Cat soon expecting a sixth after Rickon. Jon was closet in age to Uncle Ned's eldest, Robb, with whom he'd grown up like a brother--inseparable and thick as thieves... when Theon Greyjoy wasn't around of course. The moment Theon popped up Robb tried keeping them together, but inevitably Theon or Jon would end up punching one or the other, and stalking away upset, with Robb running after. Sometimes Robb came after him, sometimes he went after Theon.  
  
Mom had challenged Uncle Ned for custody of him when she was twenty one and Jon was four, and briefly Uncle Ned had let him in her care upon the delivery of the court order that Aunt Cat had forced Uncle Ned to hold out for. Mom meant well, truly she did, she just... well... got distracted all too easily--as his Uncle Ned was apt to say. For example, she ate when she was hungry, even if that was a day or two since she had had her last meal, and had only thought it natural for him to eat when she did--when she remembered to do so at all. And then there were the men she'd meet at the bars and bring home at night. Jon still recalled the summer before Kindergarten when he'd be kept up at night hearing the pounding of his mother's bed against his wall. He hadn't known what that had meant then, but now, well now was another matter. The worst of it all was the drinking. Jon didn't like his mother when she was drunk, she had a tendency to snarl and be extremely nasty, complaining about how Aunt Cat was poisoning his mind against her with her Southron lies. How Uncle Ned was butting in to things that wasn't his concern and how she could look after him and herself very well, if everyone would leave them well enough alone and let her be with Rhaegar. Shortly after defending Uncle Ned and Aunt Cat, Jon had received a slap which despite his mother's attempts to cover with makeup, was quickly discovered and sent him back to his Uncle Ned's home with his cousins.   
  
She'd recently earned the right to weekend visits with him after pleading before a judge that she had finally got her life in order. Additionally his father, on parole and interested in meeting Jon, had reached out and invited him and his mother to a "family reunion beach barbecue" as it'd been described. Jon had insisted that Uncle Ned and Aunt Cat and his cousins be included in the invitation, though Aunt Cat and Uncle Ned resisted at first.  
  
"It's a chance for you to get to know more than just your Stark family, Jon. You've got a brother and sister you've never met before who'll be there, and an Uncle and Aunt as well. Surely you don't want us holding you back from getting to know them?" Aunt Cat had implored.  
  
"It's not them I'm worried about meeting. It's my father..." admitted Jon.  
  
Uncle Ned, who was not one for many words at that point had put a hand on Jon's shoulder and squeezed tightly.  
  
"We'll be there for you then," was all Uncle Ned had to say to make Jon feel a hundred times relieved.  
  
And now here he was, dressed as non-discrete as he could. He'd show up, meet his siblings and father's relations, get to know them, briefly acknowledge his father, and then scurry back as quickly as he could to his Uncle and Aunt who were arguing over how to put together their beach tent by the edge of the sand dunes. Rickon, Bran, and Arya had already run for the waves and the sea. Sansa had rolled her eyes and buried herself behind her phone, constantly trying to find the best place to text Jeyne Poole and Beth Cassel, her two friends that Aunt Cat and Uncle Ned hadn't invited to come for fear of the rest of his cousins begging to bring their friends as well. Robb had caught sight of a pretty brunette with a seashell print bikini the moment he'd come on the beach and had casually joined her game of volleyball with her friends--pretending like he didn't know how to play despite being the only freshman on the high school volleyball team. The girl was cute but Robb had inadvertently abandoned Jon with his Mom, unlike what they'd planned how he'd approach his father's family. Mom was liable to blow up at the Targaryens, at least with Robb, he had that natural charisma going for him that Jon's non-presence wouldn't seem like so much of a slap in the face. Now Jon was left standing next to Mom, who had tagged along snorted as Uncle Ned futzed about with the tent poles and Aunt Cat scolded him.  
  
"I told you that you packed it away inside out!"   
  
"It isn't inside out. These loops are supposed to be outside for the poles to go through."  
  
"I'm not talking about your loops. I refuse to even consider them. Here, these little mesh bags are supposed to be on the inside, not the outside."  
  
"There's a pair inside and outside."  
  
"That's stupid."  
  
"It won't be when I get the fly up over it."  
  
"I'm sure you'll have it all finished by the time we're ready to go."  
  
Speaking slyly with a smirk as she signaled for him to walk with her a few paces away from his Aunt and Uncle for her to set her umbrella and chair up, Mom remarked, "That, Jon, is what many people think is love."  
  
"Is it?" he replied.  
  
"Don't try that neutral tone me. Save it for your father's family all you like, but you're going to actually be here and enjoy today with me at the very least."  
  
"Aye," he sighed.  
  
"Now, this looks as good a spot as any--and the Targaryens did say they'd be between the red lifeguard house and the blue one."  
  
Jon scanned the beach, his attention briefly caught by his cousin Arya throwing a fist full of wet sand at her sister, while Rickon and Bran ran in and out of the roaring waves, Rickon squealing with delight as the sea foam splashed around his knees, Bran quick to scoop his brother up if he got even the slightest bit deeper.  
  
Jon smiled. More than anything he wanted to be over there playing with his cousins right now, but first he'd have to change, and that would only come after he did his duty to his sperm donor of a father's family. Turning his gaze away from his enthusiastic cousins he caught the sight of what looked to be yet another group setting up their blankets and umbrellas, with an older stocky ex-army looking man lugging a wheeled barbecue behind him. Half of them had what he took to be shocking white hair. Albinos, Jon thought immediately, but upon closer look he saw that they had various assortments of tans--something albinos couldn't get. The other half had hair as black as coal, and definitely olive skin. The gathering assorted themselves on the beach with the head of the white haired family being a fussy older woman who looked to be in her fifties, talking with the stocky man who looked about her age and stuck out as belonging to neither the white or black haired clans with his own honey-brown hair. In tow was a lanky young man--obviously of college age--who was dressed almost similarly to Jon--though he was all in black like some sort of Goth or Punk or Emo or whatever it was they were calling themselves these days, though notably without the baseball cap, and was promptly hiding himself behind a book. Why hadn't Jon thought of that? Well, he hadn't ever really liked reading all that much, truth be told. Trailing right behind the woman and young man was a girl about Jon's age and tugging awkwardly at her rather modest two piece bathing suit, as though unused to it. She was quickly joined by a long dark-haired girl a few years her elder that looked to be a senior in high school if Jon was any guess, and confidently and boldly strode across the sand in her rather skimpy bikini top with only a floppy straw hat, a wrap skirt, and big 80s sunglasses like you saw on reruns of CHiPs. She took the insecure white-haired girl by the arm and dragged her over to a place where they could lay out their beach blankets. A younger even lankier white-haired boy, though by his height alone he looked to be a year or mayhaps two older than Jon, followed behind, more suitably dressed for the occasion with his swim trunks and a loose fitting off-white button down shirt that nearly hung on him-- even with the sleeves rolled up. He walked beside a rather chunky older dark haired boy with whom he pulled aside to set up a game of bean bags with. Tailing behind was what looked to be a handsomely matched dark-haired couple, with a dark-haired boy who looked to obviously be their son, followed by a gaggle of girls of various ages from as young as Rickon to nearly as old as his mother.  
  
Mom at last noticed them, having finished setting up her chair. "Ahh, the Targaryens... and the Martells. Fuck."  
  
"Language," scolded Jon, as he might Arya. A habit his Aunt Cat had instilled in him early on.  
  
"Don't you scold your mother! I'm old enough that I've earned the right to swear as I like," she pouted in response along with a hit to his arm that caused him to rub it--only to be greeted by a sticky and sweaty inner liner pressed against his body. He had to get this windbreaker off, now. And so, Jon shucked the windbreaker.  
  
"And I don't see your father. Typical... he was always late for everything... liked to make a dramatic entrance," grumbled mother.  
  
Jon took a deep breath and knew that if he wanted to get this over with without his mother ruining everything like she always did, he'd have to march right over there now. So he started trudging over, the loose sand shifting beneath his beach loafers.  
  
The older woman noticed him first as he came over, but said nothing. Jon's voice was caught in his throat--his tongue as dry as the sand about his feet. What was he going to say? What could possibly break the ice? How could he possibly have come over here and not thought--  
  
"Is there something wrong?" asked the woman immediately.  
  
"Umm, hi. I'm Jon," he mumbled.  
  
The older woman stared at him for a few seconds, clearly confused before her eyes went wide and her entire demeanor shifted immediately.  
  
"Jon. Jon Snow?" questioned the woman immediately, mentioning the name the state had interpreted his mother's sprawling handwriting when she'd tried to write down Stark. His Uncle and Aunt and even his mother had offered many times to change it for him, but Jon rather liked his name, it suited him.  
  
"Aye."  
  
Jon was caught by surprise by the rather warm reception he received as the somewhat dumpy older woman immediately hugged him and kissed his cheek as though she'd known him for more than just five seconds.  
  
"Well, I'll be. I'm your Grandmother Rhaella, and this rather stern looking man is my husband, Lieutenant General Bonifer Hasty."  
  
Jon's right hand was immediately seized and squeezed firmly by the older man. Jon, recalling what his Uncle Ned had said about handshakes, did his best to squeeze back as firmly.   
  
Gen Hasty said with some bluster, "Of the Hundredth Army. Your Uncle Eddard served in the late war as an Acting General, if I'm not mistaken?"  
  
"Aye, he did. Uncle Ned doesn't like to talk of it much though," admitted Jon, which was the truth. No one liked to talk of the late war with the Triumphirate--least of all his Uncle.  
  
"I'm sure Jon doesn't want to talk about the war. Get that barbecue set up, Bonifer, I'm starving." She then took Jon by the arm and nearly dragged him away from her husband and further down the sand to where the other members of the party had laid out their blankets. His grandmother then turned to him and said, "Now, you must be anxious to meet your brother and sister, I'm sure. Aegon! Rhaenys! Come up here."  
  
The younger white-haired boy and the older dark-haired girl both immediately looked up and stared at Jon. He knew in that instant that they knew without needing to be told. Rhaenys' sunny smile immediately faded as she returned to lathering up her body with sun tan lotion. Aegon however, stood and rather bashfully approached, his hands stuck in his pockets like Jon did. Jon immediately pulled them out of his pants pockets only to... well, put them back in.  
  
"Aegon, this is your brother, Jon Snow. Jon, this is Aegon."  
  
"Umm, Hi," mumbled Aegon, to which Jon gave a acknowledging nod of his head.  
  
"Now, I'll go and wrestle Rhaenys over here while you two get to know each other," said Jon's grandmother rather busily as she worked her way towards Jon's wayward sister.  
  
"So..." At least he was trying to break the ice first this time.  
  
"This is awkward," acknowledged Aegon.  
  
"Yeah. It is."  
  
"I mean, I always knew I had a little brother, but I uhh... umm... kinda outgrew wanting one when I was ten," admitted Aegon as he looked down immediately to his feet.  
  
"Well... you have one," was all Jon could think to reply to that.  
  
"Do you like to play Cyvasse?" asked Aegon, clearly trying to make up for admitting that last bit of honesty.  
  
"Cyv--what?"  
  
"Cyvasse. It's this new game my cousin Quentyn taught me how to play. I coul... uhh... teach you. Then we could, I dunno, do something rather than just stand here awkwardly."  
  
"Sure."  
  
Aegon gave Jon a smile and then led Jon over in the direction of the older chunky boy who was sitting swiping away at a tablet, playing what looked to be a board game on it.   
  
"Now, Quentyn here has programmed a version of Cyvasse to play online, he's the first to do it and is making a bit of money off it."  
  
"Not that much," blushed the older boy.  
  
"Don't be so modest, you could live on it if you put enough thought into a subscription service," remarked Aegon rather pointedly.  
  
"If you say so, personally I just like having people to play with who don't overturn the table on me when I beat them," countered Quentyn with a nervous smirk.  
  
"That was only one time," defended Aegon as he pulled out his own tablet and booted it up, and invited Jon to sit down next to him on his beach blanket.  
  
"I'm Jon, by the way," recalling his Aunt Cat's insistence on the necessity of introductions and proper manners.  
  
Quentyn gave a small smile and a nod of his head, but said very little in response. By this point, Aegon had got the game loaded on his tablet and started explaining the instructions on how to play. It took Jon a few repetitions to understand all the rules, having to break them down to a kind of bastard child of Stratego and Chess, but he eventually understood them well enough to play with Aegon on the same tablet. He had to take off his sunglasses in order to see the screen, and he hung them on the collar of his shirt for the time being. Aegon of course massacred him in the game, as Jon expected, but playing seemed to ease what tension there had been thank the gods. And despite himself, Jon was having a bit of fun--especially when he'd finally taken out Aegon's dragon in the last game. He'd still lost, but at least he'd taken out Aegon's dragon.  
  
"You're catching on, little brother," teased Aegon with a smirk and a playful shove to his arm.  
  
"I can't let you always win," teased Jon right back, despite himself.  
  
"You wish. Anyway, if you open an account we can play online whenever, and maybe talk through the chat option," suggested Aegon  
  
"I'm still debugging the chat option!" retorted Quentyn.  
  
"Well, then through messager then until Quentyn gets his game site up and running properly."  
  
"I'd like that," admitted Jon with a slight smile. He then felt his hat removed from his head. Jon turned around to see Rhaenys having finally come over--their grandmother, stalking back to the General in a rather huffy manner. Rhaenys had abandoned her floppy hat and was looking at Jon's baseball cap.  
  
"Leave him be, Rhaenys," sighed Aegon.  
  
"No, you got to play with our baby brother, now it's my turn," said Rhaenys with a wicked smile as she held Jon's baseball cap just out of his reach. He stood to try and get it back, only for Rhaenys to throw it out to the edge of the water.  
  
"Rhaenys!" shouted Aegon  
  
"Fetch, baby brother, like the bitch you were born from," sneered Rhaenys.  
  
Jon was silent for lack of words, in angry resentment, and utter defiance of his "sister".  
  
"Looks like you're going to lose your hat, better hurry."  
  
Jon stood still and met his taller sister's eyes, which were hidden behind her sunglasses.  
  
"And it's gone. Too bad baby brother, you must learn to be more careful with your things."  
  
And then Aegon stood, muttering a quick, "Excuse us," before grabbing their sister by the arm and dragging her away from the beach. That left Jon standing there with Quentyn who promptly buried himself back into his tablet, as if to avoid any and all confrontation. It was then that Jon decided to call it quits with his extended family. Sure, Aegon was nice enough, but that was about it.  
  
"Excuse me," called out a voice, and Jon turned to see the young white-haired girl standing there, wet and holding his completely soaked baseball cap.  
  
Jon took the soaked and sand covered cap from the girl's grasp and banged it against his pants leg, saying, "Uhh thanks, you didn't have to--"  
  
"She's not always like that," interrupted the girl.  
  
"You mean Rhaenys?" asked Jon.  
  
The girl nodded and then said, "She's just really upset. When Rhaegar... when Rhaegar ran off with your mother, it sent her mother into a depression... Viserys can explain it better than I can, I wasn't even born yet... but I know this much, it was really hard on Rhaenys and Elia when Rhaegar abandoned them like that."  
  
"Yeah, well, I can't help what my parents did."  
  
"No, you can't," she agreed and then paused for an instant and said, "I'm Dany by the way, your Aunt."  
  
"Aunt? Aren't you a little young to be my aunt?"  
  
Dany giggled and then added, "The General's my father."  
  
"Aye, that would explain things."  
  
"You should meet Viserys, I'm sure it'll go over better..." Dany trailed off, as though thinking better of what she was about to say.  
  
But Jon finished her thoughts for her. "Better than meeting Rhaenys did?"  
  
Dany nodded her head and grabbing Jon's dragged him over to the man all in black who by now had given up reading his book--which was by Nietzche and was laying back in the shade of his umbrella looking as though he were napping. Dany quietly snuck up next to Viserys and poked him in the side, immediately disturbing him.  
  
"For the thousandth time, Dany, I told you not to poke me!" growled Viserys, but Dany didn't seemed at all intimidated by his unrestrained bluster.  
  
"Brother, look, our nephew," introduced Dany.  
  
Jon despite himself found himself nervously fumbling with his still wet baseball cap.  
  
"You disturb me from my thoughts for this?" grumbled Viserys as he motioned somewhat disdeainfully at Jon.  
  
"When did you ever have any deep thoughts?"  
  
"I'm studying for my philosophy class," retorted Viserys.  
  
"The least you can do is say hello," pouted Dany.  
  
"Oh all right... fine," grumbled Viserys who stood up, dwarfing Jon by his height. He custumarially shook hands with Jon briefly, as though looking to get it over with as quick as possible.  
  
"You don't look a thing like my brother," remarked his young Uncle.  
  
"I take after my Uncle Ned," explained Jon.  
  
"Deep thoughts indeed," groaned Viserys, who looked back at Dany as if to ask if he were excused, but Dany put her hands on her hips like Jon had seen Rhaella do to the General briefly and Viserys turned back to Jon.  
  
"What grade are you in, again?"  
  
"I just finished my freshman year at Wintertown High."  
  
"Ahh, Sophmore, the fucking worst year of your life."  
  
"I thought that was Freshman?"  
  
"No, it's sophmore--trust me, it'll be a hell of a year."  
  
"Was it that bad for you?"  
  
Viserys stared at Jon for a second before turning to Dany and saying, "You know, this one might actually have something resembling a brain unlike Aegon and Rhaenys."  
  
Jon laughed nervously at that, thinking he was supposed to, but all Viserys did was turn back around and raise his eyebrow at Jon.  
  
"Try reading Sartre before laughing at the absurd," mumbled Viserys before he returned to his position of laying down to "think".  
  
Just then a volleyball came bouncing right between Jon and Dany and not far behind it came Robb, running across the sand.  
  
"Jon! Grab that ball!" shouted Robb as the ball began rolling for the ocean. Jon obliged his cousin and tossed Robb the ball, who betrayed himself by catching it easily as he stopped to catch his breath and take a look at Dany.  
  
"So here's where you ran off to... though isn't she rather young?"  
  
"Friend of yours?" asked Dany with a smirk.  
  
"Cousin. Dany, this is Robb, my Uncle Ned's eldest son. Robb, this is Dany... my Aunt."  
  
Robb's demeanor completely shifted as suddenly he remembered just exactly what they'd planned. Somewhere deep down, Jon was savoring that terrified look on Robb's face for abandoning him.


	24. Jeyne Poole in Season One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A spin-off of my Show!Dorne rewrite of the TV series, I now begin to tackle two plot lines I know come in second and third for most reviled: The post Season 4 Northern Plot. In order to do this, I wanted to actually make Jeyne Poole more of a character in the series, being on par with Theon in terms of screen time in Season One, and offering insight in terms of a lesser noble lady who is lower in status than Sansa and Arya, but higher in status than Ros (who yes, still exists on the show). Additionally she'll be in the show moving forward as well. This is just as much of a presence as I imagine Jeyne having in the pilot episode, building off of the cameo that she already makes in it as it exists already. Eventually this will get bumped into its own thing and tied to my Show!Dorne rewrites, especially as Jeyne's presence in the story will necessitate Sansa's story to go off in a different direction from Season 5 on wards, which will also be touched upon, but before we do that, we have some set up to get through.
> 
> Please keep in mind, like my Show!Dorne rewrites, it's written in script/screenplay format.

**EPISODE ONE – WINTER IS COMING**  
  
  
INT. GREAT HALL - WINTERFELL - NIGHT  
  
We see JEYNE POOLE and SANSA talking to one another from CATELYN’s perspective, though what they are saying is obscured by the noise of the crowd inside the Hall, and CATELYN’s conversation with CERSEI.  
  
ARYA catapults a bit of food at SANSA which hits and causes SANSA to stand up and complain.  
  
  
SANSA  
Arya!  
  
  
We see ROBB laughing with THEON at his sisters’ antics. CATELYN tries to catch ROBB’s eye, but fails to do so. The CAMERA shifts so we can now hear what JEYNE and SANSA are talking about with each other.  
  
  
JEYNE  
I’ve got it off your face.  
  
  
SANSA  
But it’ll never come out of my dress.   
  
  
JEYNE  
Arya’s never cared about such things.  
  
  
SANSA  
Exactly! Nor does anyone else in my family. Sometimes… sometimes I wish I wasn’t born into this family. I don’t belong here, in the North. Not really. This isn’t my true home… I can’t wait to go south to the capital.  
  
  
JEYNE  
I’ll miss you when you go south.  
  
  
SANSA  
Nonsense, you’d surely come with. Father would need a steward down there as much as here in Winterfell, and you’d go wherever your father went, right?  
  
  
JEYNE  
He’s all I have.  
  
  
SANSA  
Exactly. And besides, if I marry Prince Joffrey, I’ll need ladies in waiting, and you would be head among them.  
  
  
We see JEYNE look over somewhat longingly at ROBB who is still laughing and talking with THEON.  
  
  
JEYNE  
Really? You’d still want me after seeing all those Southron ladies?  
  
  
SANSA  
Of course, you’re the only person in this castle, besides my mother, who comes close to understanding me. I’d never abandon you! You’re more of a sister to me than Arya.  
  
  
JEYNE smiles, looking between SANSA and ROBB, but moreso at ROBB.  
  
  
JEYNE  
And would it make me as important as… say a Lord Paramount’s daughter?  
  
  
SANSA  
More so. You’d be the head lady in waiting to the Queen and could have any husband you wanted.  
  
  
ROBB notices that JEYNE is staring at him, and JEYNE looks away and then back at SANSA who she hugs. ARYA once again lobs another splat of food, this time getting both SANSA and JEYNE. SANSA breaks the hug and begins to stand up.  
  
  
SANSA  
I’ll get her!  
  
  
JEYNE stands up and indicates over to where JOFFREY is sitting, now suddenly paying attention to SANSA. SANSA blushes and begins to sit down.  
  
  
JEYNE  
Let me.  
  
  
JEYNE marches over towards ARYA. The CAMERA cuts back to CATELYN who is desperately doing what she can to catch Robb’s attention short of flailing her arms and calling out his name, by coughing.  
  
  
CERSEI  
Are you quite all right, Lady Stark?  
  
  
CATELYN  
The wine… it went down… the wrong way.  
  
  
CATELYN through her coughs manages to gain ROBB’s attention, and indicates over to JEYNE who is fast approaching ARYA. ROBB stands up and starts to cross the room himself. The CAMERA cuts to JEYNE approaching ARYA.  
  
  
JEYNE  
Why if it isn’t Arya Underfoot, ruining everyone’s night!  
  
  
ARYA  
No I’m not.  
  
  
ROBB comes up behind JEYNE.  
  
  
JEYNE  
Why don’t you go back to the stables? That’s where horse faces like you belong, not—  
  
  
ROBB  
I’ll thank you to not harass my little sister.  
  
  
JEYNE freezes and slowly turns around.  
  
  
JEYNE  
I—I only meant… that is…  
  
  
ROBB  
You may be Sansa’s friend, but anyone who insults my little sister insults my house and me. I expected more from our steward’s daughter.  
  
  
JEYNE is practically on the verge of tears.  
  
  
JEYNE  
I’m… I’m sorry.  
  
  
ROBB  
I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.  
  
  
JEYNE turns to ARYA, who is biting her lip uncomfortably.  
  
  
JEYNE  
I’m sorry… Lady Arya.  
  
  
ARYA nods, and JEYNE looks up one last time at ROBB before turning, and hurrying away and out of the hall. ROBB looks confused at this response, while ARYA rolls her eyes at ROBB’s response. JEYNE passes by SANSA who by now has engaged SEPTA MORDANE in conversation about her dress, pointing out the stains to MORDANE. SANSA fails to notice as JEYNE runs right past her and out of the hall. ARYA gives ROBB a look.  
  
  
ROBB  
What, no thank you?  
  
  
ARYA  
Thank you.  
  
  
ROBB  
You’re welcome. Though next time, try not to provoke her.  
  
  
ARYA  
Sansa and Jeyne have called me worse things than horse face.  
  
  
ROBB  
Since when?  
  
  
_(BEAT)_  
  
  
ARYA  
Are you really this stupid?  
  
  
ARYA gets up and leaves the hall, following JEYNE out of it. THEON by this point has gotten up himself and come over to the perplexed ROBB.  
  
  
THEON  
What sent Jeyne Poole running off crying like that?  
  
  
ROBB  
I don’t know, but somehow it’s all my fault.  
  
  
THEON  
Women. What you need is another ale to take your mind of ‘em.  
  
  
THEON starts to bring ROBB back to the table, and shoves a horn of ale into ROBB’s hand, and they drink.


End file.
